Brian Griffiths

Check the Mothership

2010-09-26T19:52:00.001-04:00

If you're looking for my political content, please tottle over to Red Maryland where I have begun exclusively posting (most) of my political material over there...

2010 NFL Predictions

2010-09-08T23:07:00.001-04:00

Last year I predicted that Ravens would beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl......yeah, that didn't work out. So I present to you another set of football predictions that are bound to be wrong.

AFC East: NY Jets, New England, Miami,Buffalo,
AFC North: Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland
AFC South: Indianapolis, Houston, Tennessee, Jacksonville
AFC West: San Diego, Denver, Oakland, Kansas City
NFC East: Dallas, Philadelphia, NY Giants, Washington
NFC North: Green Bay, Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit
NFC South: New Orleans, Atlanta, Carolina, Tampa Bay
NFC West: San Francisco, Arizona, Seattle, St. Louis

AFC 1st Round:
(5) Cinncinati def. (4) San Diego
(3) Indianapolis def. (6) Houston

NFC 1st Round::
(5) Philadelphia def. (4) San Francisco
(3) Dallas def. (6) Minnesota

AFC Divisional:
(1) Baltimore def. (5) Cincinnati
(2) NY Jets def. (3) Indianapolis

NFC Divisional:
(1) New Orleans def. (5) Philadelphia
(2) Green Bay def. (3) Dallas

AFC Championship:
(1) Baltimore def. (2) NY Jets

NFC Championship:
(2) Green Bay def. (1) New Orleans

Super Bowl XLV:
Baltimore def. Green Bay

My Personal Endorsements

2010-09-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

We have been making a lot of endorsements over at Red Maryland. But I've got picks in other races too that I would like to share with you that may not necessarily have been up there for consideration by Red Maryland.

So that end.....here we go:

State Senate

District 2: Delegate Chris Shank
This is bound to create a bit of stir with some people. But I like Chris Shank. I think he is a good voice for the conservative movement, and I believe that he will be an effective voice for the movement in the Senate. I'm not as agitated by Senator Munson as a lot of conservatives are. I just think, from my perspective, Chris Shank will be a more effective conservative voice.
District 4: Senator David Brinkley
District 5: Delegate Joe Getty
District 8: Dee Hodges
Her opponent is Benjamin Lawless. 'Nuff said.
District 36: Senator EJ Pipkin

House of Delegates

District 4B: Kelly Schulz
District 27B: Mark Fisher
Any guy who takes a punch at a Republican club meeting and doesn't make a production of it deserves respect.
District 29A: Matt Morgan
District 32: Stephanie Hodges and Wayne Smith (Do NOT vote for George Law; he is a former Green Party and Democratic Party candidate
District 34: Patrick McGrady
District 37A: Dustin Mills
District 38B: Mike McDermott
District 42: Delegate Susan Aumann, Delegate Bill Frank

Local Candidates
Anne Arundel County
Register of Wills
Register Lauren Parker

County Council, District 3
Carl "Dutch" Holland

County Council, District 5
Maureen Carr-York

Orphans Court
Judge Nancy Phelps, Judge Gordon Witherspoon, Judge Judith Duckett

Get Steinereized

2010-08-30T05:00:00.000-04:00

I will be returning to The Marc Steiner Show tonight from 6-7 PM on WEAA 88.9 FM.

We'll be talking about the political, economic, and social divisions in the US and how it relates to this past weekend's anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech and the Restoring Honor rally.

And if you have listened before, you know that I will be the guy on the air that's making sense....but I hope you can catch the show.

Letters to the Beyond

2010-08-15T09:40:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I get letters. Sometimes Derek Fink sends them to Republican voters in Council District 3. And this one is quite the doozy. Please read it for yourself.
Fink Letter

Bud hit a lot of the points on Friday, but a lot of them deserved continued discussion.

In the third paragraph, Fink declares that he likes to get right to the point. Except for the obvious fact that if you are two paragraphs in and haven't made a point yet, then you probably don't like to get right to the point.

Fink says: "We must begin, at the local level, to take back our government from those out-of-touch liberal politicians and bureaucrats." Which of course is a very interesting statement. For you see, incumbent County Councilman Ron Dillon is a Republican. Our three Delegates are Republicans. Our State Senator is a Republican. Our County Executive is a Republican. Our Register of Wills, Clerk of the Court, Orphans Court judges are Republicans....

....so has Derek Fink called out his own party as being full of liberals. As Bud notes, "if there's a problem at the local level, then it's only fair to blame the party in power," which in this case is our party. Which if there is a problem at the local level, does that mean he is declaring Delegates Nic Kipke and Steve Schuh, two guys who stuck their necks our early to endorse Fink, as liberals? I tend to believe that both of those gentlemen would dispute that notion, but apparently their guy might think otherwise.

Fink goes on in the letter to do the really classy thing of attacking his opponents personally, just not by name:

My opponents in the Republican Primary have records of supporting "Big Government" along with checkered pasts and both political and legal baggage. They have been members of the Democrat Party, one has a criminal record, and there are countless bankruptcy filings, financial problems, and foreclosures in their pasts.

Well, there is a rich irony in Fink's campaign putting out a statement like this, especially given the controversy surrounding Fink's campaign and his separation in his business dealings with Cookie Kiser. But of course, the implication that all of his opponents have legal baggage is also easily debunked by searching the Court Records; former County Councilman Dutch Holland, for example, is only listed in court cases related to his duties as a County Councilman. Why would Fink insinuate that Holland had legal problems without naming names OR providing any evidence?

There are other less interesting parts of the letter. Fink lays out an alleged "Six Point Plan" for success that goes into no more detail than the unoriginal, not at all detailed bullet points that have been on his website for a year.He does talk about one of my pet issues, direct election of the Anne Arundel County School Board, without actually acknowledging that he has zero power as a County Councilman to make a change to our current process.

What does this letter ultimately tell us about Derek Fink. It tells of of a campaign that remains in a continued panic. A campaign that does not connect with voters in District 3. A candidate that is desperate to win and remove roadblocks from his campaign, regardless of the methods. It also talks a little bit about the character of Derek Fink, which given the things that we have already discussed and some of the unsubstantiated rumors that surround Fink continues to be in question. If the guy who throw Nic Kipke and Steve Schuh under the bus for political gain, what will this guy do if he gets elected to the County Council?

I for one will not be voting for Derek Fink on September 14th.

Judd Legum Smacked Down

2010-08-10T21:43:00.000-04:00

Judd Legum has been running around spinning a yarn implying that Delegate Ron George bought his seat in the House of Delegates in 2006.

"Four years ago, the Republican incumbent in our district reached into his own deep pocket and dumped $80,000 into the race to win by 53 votes."

Kudos to Paul Foer for picking up on this, and for giving Leugm repeated opportunities to back up his claims, as well as giving Delegate George the opportunity to respond.

Well if you know about Judd Legum, you already know that he didn't respond. But Ron George did:

There is a fundraising note going out from the Legum campaign that makes claims and I want to set the record straight. I do not have "deep pockets", nor did I spend $80,000 of my own money. I started my campaign in 2006 by paying for some mailings and start-up costs myself instead of doing a start-up "loan" like other candidates do. Then as the campaign went on, my wife Becky and I made loans from our IRA and savings but never paid it back to ourselves. By the end of the 2 year campaign, we spent $40,000 of our own money which we had saved up for over a number of years. In addition, we raised another $122,000 almost entirely from people within the district. We were supposed to pay ourselves back what we loaned, but were so committed to the race that we did not. It left us broke but we were determined to invest in Maryland as our children wished to stay here and we were concerned for the environment, economic opportunity, and safety. Our deep love for Maryland drove us to be involved in a greater way.

The note from Legum attempts to play class warfare by claiming I have "deep pockets" and that I "dumped $80,000 into the race to win by 53 votes." Not true. The amount he claims rises each time he tells this story. He has used such language in the past saying his opponent is "independently wealthy", "entrenched", "sells diamonds" (that one is true but what is his point?). Becky and I work hard and scrimp and save just like everyone else. Michael Busch had $750,000 in his campaign account in the Spring of 2006. I had $50,000. Mr Legum has raised most of his money this cycle from interests outside the state and is doing very well. My donations are almost entirely from the hard working citizens of Anne Arundel County, mostly District 30.

What does Foer think of this entire mess:

So I repeatedly asked Legum to substantiate such charges. He did not. I would have thought that Legum, a lawyer and master in online and opposition research who ran Hillary Clinton's research department when she ran against Obama, would have easily been able to prove these claims to me....

...The big difference, among many differences between Legum and George is that George has both a voting record and one as a business owner in the area. Legum's record and background, although he is a local native, is less clear and less readily available. While he has been campaigning vigorously and knocking on doors, I'd much rather see him explaining who he is and what he intends to do as a delegate rather than attacking his likely Republican general opponent. Another big difference is that George came forward to explain his side of the story while we are still waiting for legum to provide some real data instead of telling me to dig it up.

So what lessons have been reinforced from this little exchange?

Judd Legum wants to be a Delegate in a bad, bad way;
Judd Legum will spin any yarn and tell any lie in order to become a member of the House of Delegate;
Judd Legum is more concerned with advancing his political career and obtaining power than either being honest with or representing the interest of the people of District 30.

Delegate Ron George is not basing his entire campaign on telling tales and is not relying on Washington insiders to buy his seat. Contact the Ron George campaign to see how you can help keep a responsible conservative in the House of Delegates.

Legum's Well Runs Dry

2010-08-10T18:28:00.001-04:00

Judd Legum raised tens of thousands of dollars from out of state interests....but apparently he is having trouble raising $5,000 over two weeks these days:

Friend:

So close!

We need to raise $425.53 in the next 14 hours to reach our $5,000 goal before the campaign finance deadline. If you haven't had a chance yet, can you pitch in $20 right now to help us over the finish line?

http://www.JuddLegum.com/donate

As I campaign relentlessly around the district for Maryland State Delegate, a common question from political activists is: are you viable? In other words, before they support me and risk angering an incumbent, they want to know whether I have the resources to win.

With your help, we can send a strong signal across the district that this campaign should not be underestimated.

Sincerely,

Judd

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Judd Legum <judd@juddlegum.com> wrote

Friend:

I'm extremely pleased to report that in five days, we've raised $4,005.47. That means with less than 48 hours to go before the campaign finance deadline we are just $994.53 from our $5,000 goal. If you haven't contributed to this effort yet, can you pitch in $20 right now?

http://www.JuddLegum.com/donate

I'm the only candidate in this race that's turning down money from state lobbyists and PACs. That's because I'm running to represent the people of this district and not any special interest seeking to exert influence over the State House.

But that also means I'm counting on you for the resources we need to win.

Best,

Judd

Judd Legum for Maryland
275 West St, Suite 305
Annapolis, MD 21401
443-510-8880
JuddLegum.com

Follow on Facebook + Twitter

By Authority: Judd Legum for Maryland, Shane Nikolao, Treasurer

Apparently raising nearly $50,000 from out of state interests isn't enough for Legum. Of course, that may have something to do with the tall tales that he is telling about Ron George, but we will save that for a little bit later...

Hype, Reality, Gimmicks

2010-08-08T21:51:00.000-04:00

If you listen to Martin O'Malley, you would think that Maryland is the land of milk and honey when it comes to job retention and job creation.

Of course, the reality of the situation could not be any different for the working men and women of our state:

Two well-paying blue-collar employers in Washington County are shuttering their businesses, adding to the woes of this Western Maryland county that already has a jobless rate among the highest in the state.

Read the whole story to learn about the bleak economic picture out in this region of our state. The recession impacts Western Maryland worse than many other areas of the state because the businesses in this region are competing against two states for businesses and job creation. Both Pennsylvania and West Virginia have a climate that is more conducive for economic growth given the fact that businesses face fewer unnecessary regulations and are no subjected to such a high cost of business through overtaxation.

Martin O'Malley has not been inclined to deal with the issue of economic growth and job creation throughout his term, as you know, since he insists on expanding the scope of government and raising taxes on businesses and individuals alike.

But that does not mean that the administration is doing nothing in an effort to pretend like they are creating a conducive economic climate. The Democrats in Annapolis still insisted on bringing back the sales tax holiday each August as part of the Saturday Night Massacre back in 2007. As part of their effort to raise taxes to historic and immoral levels, Democrats decided that the least they could do is to give citizens the facade that their care by overhyping a sales tax holiday on small purchases that does little more than prove to citizens how much they actually pay in taxes on even the most basic of items. The sales tax holiday is little more than a gimmick designed to make people think that the Democrats in Annapolis care about them.

There are fewer than 90 days until the election. And on November 2nd we will have the opportunity to elect a Governor and members of the General Assembly who will take steps to improve instead of destroy our economy.

Judd Legum Hugs Thugs

2010-08-03T20:41:00.000-04:00

Our favorite ~~bought and paid for Washington insider~~ "Progressive Democrat" Judd Legum was as proud as a peacock today:

Proud to be endorsed by the working men and women of @SEIU

That's kinda funny that Judd Legum is tripping all over himself to talk about his proud endorsement by the Service Employees International Union.

But....does anybody remember the last time we mentioned the SEIU? Let us take you back to May when members of the SEIU decided that instead of participating in reasoned discourse that they would instead decided to intimidate a 14-year old boy. Just in case you forgot, here's the video of that:

I suppose then through his acceptance of the endorsement and his complete lack of silence on this heinous act that Judd Legum supports political violence and intimidation of his political opponents.

Of course that's not the only issue that we have seen in recent months with the SEIU. Let us take you back to April when the SEIU was involved in an attack add falsely accusing Governor Ehrlich of being a lobbyist, notwithstanding the fact that the SEIU's own President was an unregistered lobbyist working with the White House.

Then again, maybe the SEIU endorsement has nothing to do with Legum's non-response on union thuggery and has everything to do with the involvement of both the SEIU and Legum's Center for American Progress in the secretive Democracy Alliance project that funneled money between liberal interest groups without the needless hassle of disclosure of their donor lists.

Regardless of this, one thing has remained perfectly clear throughout the entire length of this campaign in District 30. Judd Legum has no principles. He will take any endorsement, no matter what the organization is. He will spare no expense to raise tens of thousands of dollars from out of state if it means that he can advance his political career at the expense of the residents of Maryland and the residents of District 30. He continues to refer to his mentor John Podesta, a guy who is so out there that he is a UFO-truther. And it is perfectly clear that by getting in bed with the SEIU leadership that Judd Legum has no problem with intimidation of those people who disagree with him.

Judd Legum may have gotten into bed with thugs....and maybe that has something to do with the fact that Judd Legum has no balls and is too yellow to actually defend himself....but it is unmistakable that Judd Legum has willingly taken the endorsement of those that condone political violence. And I do not find such an endorsement acceptable of somebody who wants to serve in the House of Delegates.

Vitale Plays Fast and Loose with the Facts

2010-07-25T21:00:00.001-04:00

Cathy Vitale's first mailer has hit the street, which you can see here. Red Maryland, as you know, has already endorsed Delegate Tony McConkey and Vic Bernson for Delegate in this district, but that does not change the factual inaccuracies with Cathy Vitale's first mailer.

There are two key points that need to be refuted here:

1. Slots:
Vitale claims to have fought to "Give citizens the right to vote on slot machines at Arundel Mills."

Well, that statement clearly does not past the smell test for two reasons:

- The Statement is just factually wrong; there was never a provision in the slots ordinance that would have allowed the ordinance to go to a vote. The only reason that there will be a referendum on slots is because of the work of people like the Stop Slots Arundel Mills whose volunteers signed petitions and then fought the case all the way to the Court of Appeals in order to give citizens the right to vote.

- Vitale voted no on the ordinance that changed the zoning for the Arundel Mills slots project. But she only voted not after delaying the voter for weeks. This delay actually created the environment that allowed a coalition of four votes to be cobbled together in order to actually pass the slots resolution over Vitale's alleged objections. The fact of the matter is that they delay is what ultimately led to the passage of the zoning ordinance.

I don't think that the folks who actually are fighting the war on slots at Arundel Mills are going to appreciate Cathy Vitale taking credit for their work. I asked the folks at Stop Slots at Arundel Mills for their thoughts, and the note I received indicated that "Cathy did in fact help us, and has been helping us all along." But of course that does not the change the fact that the referendum effort could have been avoided had it not been for Vitale's delaying tactics.

2. Help for Families:
Vitale also claims that as a Delegate she would "Help Working Families" and "Reduce Taxes."

Well, let us take you back to 2007 when Cathy Vitale (along with her compadre, now State Senator Ed Reilly)fought tooth and nail to require that new single-family homes constructed in Anne Arundel County be outfitted with sprinkler systems. This is a requirement that increased the cost of home construction in Anne Arundel County by $1 per square foot. Cathy Vitale's actions directly increased the cost of new homes for working families in Anne Arundel County, and are typical of the nannystate liberalism that we would expect from Montgomery County, not the most conservative legislative district in Maryland.

As Greg said, there is a reason that we endorse the folks we endorse. We endorse good conservative candidates who will fight for lower taxes and smaller government. Cathy Vitale is a big government "conservative"and she is not giving voters the facts in her campaign pieces.

From the Fink Files

2010-07-18T21:19:00.000-04:00

We find ourselves talking about Derek Fink once more, who you may remember got himself tied up in a business imbroglio with one of his diehard supporters back in January. Well, it sounds like Fink has never recovered from this snafu as his campaign is now asking surrogates to try to clear the field from him.

Fink had Delegate Steve Schuh, one of Fink's longtime supporters and the man who allowed Fink to manage his 2006 Delegate campaign, approach County Council candidate Carl "Dutch" Holland about withdrawing from the Republican Primary here in District 3. Schuh allegedly told Holland that he "had no chance at winning" and that Holland should withdraw because of it.

While it it true Holland did not file until late in the filing period, this is not Dutch Holland's first rodeo; he has long been involved in county politics. Holland served on the County Council from 1990-1994. Holland was the first Republican to win in the 3rd District, ending the stranglehold of four-term Democrat Bud Ahern. Holland would win the Republican nomination in three straight elections, losing the general election to then Democrat Tom Redmond in 1994, and then defeating the newly minted Republican Redmond in 1998. Holland also finished second in a hotly contested Republican Senate Primary in 2006 despite little campaigning, achieving nearly a quarter of the vote on name recognition alone.

That means that Holland has to be considered one of the three frontrunners in this Republican Primary right there along with Fink and the aforementioned Redmond.

What is interesting about this development is the fact that it makes crystal clear that Fink has never recovered from the severe damage he inflicted on his ties with the Pasadena area business community over the Cookie Kiser fiasco. The fact that Fink feels it necessary to approach a candidate who just entered the race last week shows that the Fink campaign is in a panic over their chances of winning on September 14th.

This is a sign of tremendous weakness on the part of a candidate whose operation thinks he is an unstoppable juggernaut.

Baltimore Sun should tread carefully on issue of race and the tea parties

2010-07-16T10:51:00.000-04:00

So The Baltimore Sun today had a very perplexing editorial this morning supporting the NAACP for it's declaration that the Tea Party movement is a racist movement. Not perplexing because they should support racist activity; obviously every well-thinking person should find racial discrimination appalling and disgusting.

But the editorial comes out supporting an NAACP position that the NAACP is already backtracking from given the hullabaloo over the disparaging nature of their statement. And of course its lack of facts. As I noted on The Marc Steinter Show yesterday the tea party movement, particularly here in Maryland, is representative of the entire Maryland population, made up of a cross-section of parties, races, and creeds. The keynote speaker at these Annapolis rallies multiple times has been Republican Congressional Candidate Charles Lollar, an African-American from Charles County.

Timothy Dalrymple has a well-written piece regarding racism in the tea party and why the entire movement cannot be painted with a racist brush, and why the liberal intelligentsia is quick to pain it in that light. Here's a sample:

The charge that the Tea Party is racist is a perfect object lesson in liberal misinterpretation of conservatives. It is, of all the charges leveled against the Tea Party movement, the most inflammatory and the most politically damaging. Yet the accusation says more about the accusers than the accused.
Critics of the Tea Party point to a smattering of racist signs at rallies around the country, to the low percentage of minorities involved in the movement, and to a study that purports to show high levels of "racial resentment" among tea party supporters. These arguments are, however, mere justifications for a position already taken. Liberals were inclined to believe Tea Partiers racist even before such "evidence" was available. That is, the belief that Tea Partiers are racist is not an evidence-based belief. It is a belief in search of evidence.

What I propose, then, is the Theory of the Missing Motive. Since the education establishment has failed to convey a thorough and unprejudiced perspective on differing political points of view, even highly educated liberals possess a cartoonish, easily-dismissed image of American conservative thought. Liberals cannot believe that Tea Partiers are actually motivated by the passions and the reasons that Tea Partiers claim motivate them, because liberals in general are alienated from those passions and insufficiently educated in those reasons.

It is essentially a failure of imagination. Liberals cannot imagine themselves into a way of thinking in which conservatives do what they do and believe what they believe for good reasons. And since they cannot believe that conservatives are motivated by rational beliefs and admirable motives, they must appeal to darker, more primitive impulses to explain their behavior. The racist motive presents itself as a natural and convenient explanation.

Liberals, in other words, were always going to believe that a movement dominated by white conservatives is racist.

Of course, there are other more complicated issues at work here too, also with a Maryland Connection. One of the cites that we have seen from several sources is that the leftist organization Think Progress has been knowingly using signs brought to Tea Party rallies by liberal plants as evidence to show that the Tea Party movement is racist. Not that this is a surprise since Think Progress is well known for its deceitful nature. As for the Maryland connection, remember that District 30 Delegate candidate Judd Legum is the founder of Think Progress, and I cannot imagine that the residents of District 30 want to be represented by somebody like Legum is associated with such bigotry and such lies.

Both sides of the aisle should condemn racial bigotry when it is present and when it is seen. However, little evidence has been presented that the Tea Party movement is in an of itself racist. It looks like, however, the left is creating racial fronts in an effort to discredit the Tea Party movement. I eagerly await the condemnation of these groups from the Sun and the NAACP.

Taking Action

2010-07-07T23:08:00.000-04:00

Since Martin O'Malley seems to be hellbent on brushing aside the continued MARC train issues to the point that one of these days #MARCfail is going to actually become a trending topic on Twitter, Governor Ehrlich is actually trying to do something constructive; listen to MARC's customers through the creation of a "Commuters for Ehrlich" caucus of transit riders who are fed up with the continued failure of Martin O'Malley's MTA.

The group will be led by Craig Borne, who is featured in this video:

I have long been critical of the failures of Martin O'Malley's transit administration; and it is heartening that Governor Ehrlich is taking positive action to solve problems for Maryland.

A False Flag

2010-07-04T01:32:00.000-04:00

Now I speak of something that several Republicans have talked about privately, but nobody has spoken about publicly until now...

....is Daniel Vovak a Democrat in disguise?

Sure Daniel Vovak has ostensibly "run" for several offices as a Republican, included a "campaign" for President in 2004 when he wasn't eligible, seeking the Republican nomination for Senate in 2004 when the Republican nominee was disqualified (ironically, that selection went to former Marylander Alan Keyes, who got the right to get trounced by Barack Obama that November). Vovak then sought the Republican nomination for Senate here in Maryland in 2006, running a relatively Seinfeld-esque campaign while wearing a wig, followed up by his quixotic campaign for State Party Chair last year. In between, he managed to come up with a hairbrained movie concept about the Monica Lewinsky that starred Paula Jones and wrote a novel with himself as the main character.

His latest publicity stunts haven't really done much better as far as establishing credibility. He's running for Montgomery County Executive, ostensibly as a Republican but taking wildly odd political positions many of which run contrary to basic Republican principles. In the meantime, he's also trying to hire a Democratic County Councilman to run his administration, attended Martin O'Malley's campaign kickoff. His latest stunt is publicly pointing out that the Maryland Democratic Party thanked the Republican Vovak for his donation. And Vovak even manages to throw this quote in there:

I'm probably the only Republican since Connie Morella whom Democrats can trust.

I think it is safe to say that Daniel Vovak is not a Republican, at least by any ostensibly reasonable definition of what it is to be a Republican. Not only does Vovak not take any reasonably Republican issue positions in his campaign, but it also is clear that any time that Vovak obtains even a modicum of publicity for his schemes, it is always in a light to brings disdain and embarrassment to the Maryland Republican Party.

Daniel Vovak may be a registered Republican. He may be a candidate in a Republican Primary. But it is clear that Vovak is not a Republican, merely a liberal operating under a false flag in order to bring shame to our side. And I don't think that we should pretend that he is anything else any longer...

Pictures are worth more than a thousand words...

2010-07-02T22:45:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to the fine folks who are in charge of the newly re-designed martinomalley.com website.

Those pictures that you guys have put up on the website sure are pretty....

....they are also pictures that have been taken under the auspices of the Maryland State Government. Which means those pictures are owned by the taxpayers of Maryland, not the O'Malley Campaign.

So, folks at the O'Malley campaign....did you pay to use those photos, or are you blatantly violating state law regarding the use of state-owned photography?

Inquiring minds want to know.....

It's Time to Clean House

2010-06-28T23:30:00.001-04:00

The MTA just cannot get out of its own way these days. Because we get point after point after point about the culture of failure that has seeped into every pore of that agency.

Even I, as much of a critic as I am, understand that mistakes happen and that sometimes things break. But when you skip major MARC stations without a reasonable explanation, forcing riders to doubleback, it makes you wonder what kind of circus Ralign Wells is running over there.

It is time (still) for Martin O'Malley to clean house over at the MTA and send a message to transit users that the continued failure of the Agency is no longer acceptable.

O'Malley in Microcosm

2010-06-24T23:20:00.000-04:00

The MARC Train Ride from Hell is starting to become a perfect microcosm of the failures of the O'Malley Administration.

MARC train service has been a problem throughout the O'Malley Administration. The entire Maryland Transit Administration has been a mess throughout the O'Malley Administration. Then earlier this week, we had the complete breakdown of common sense and order on MARC Train 538. Thousands of suburban, middle-class voters commuting between D.C. and the Washington area get stuck in sweltering, inhuman heat on a train for two hours.

Then and only then does Martin O'Malley wake up from his rock star dreams to deal with the harsh reality of the situation by....appearing for a campaign spectacle photo op to try and cover his indifference on the issue. And even then, his presence didn't exactly stop more grisly conditions on today's trains.

The fact that Secretary of Transportation Beverly Swaim-Staley or embattled Transit Administrator Ralign Wells never bothered to show up to MARC riders advisory committee meetings probably explains a heck of a lot about the continued failures of the MTA to deal with this.....though it does explain why Ralign Wells thinks that all of MTA's problems are with their perception.

And don't forget that beyond the MARC train debacle, the MTA remains the gang that couldn't shoot straight on other issues, too.

Martin O'Malley's dealing with the "hell train" fiasco from early in the week has been eerily similar to the way he has run his entire administration:

Identify the problem;
Ignore the problem;
Notice that the problem has begat some sort of calamity, particularly one that impacts white, suruban, middle class voters from Baltimore or Howard Counties;
See if the problem is your fault;
Create a photo op to address the problem;
Blame Bob Ehrlich;
Go back to ignoring the problem.

While Martin O'Malley has been ignoring transit issues for his entire administration, many critics (of which I include myself) have been documenting problems with the Transit Administration for several years. He is little more than a Johnny Come-lately on this issue, particularly as it relates to MARC trains. Only now that his failure to lead on reforming the MTA has led to such a public relations nightmare has O'Malley finally decided to give the appearance that he is doing something about it.

We're wathcing Governor...prove us wrong.

But I thought it was a perception problem

2010-06-22T22:29:00.000-04:00

Remember last week when MTA Chief Ralign Wells said that the problem with the MTA and its services was perception and not service.

Yeah....about that.

I have a high suspicion that the 1,000 commuters that the MTA left stranded for two-hours in hot, inhuman conditions without being provided any relief in the form of a simple drink of water on a MARC train probably think that the perception of the MTA is not exactly a high priority. Maybe a MARC train system that works is. Because this does not sound like the words of satisfied customers:

They absolutely lost control of the situation," said Tim Kelly of Arbutus, a
10-year MARC rider who called the experience "the worst I've ever seen" on the
commuter railroad.

Passenger Bill Rowe of Towson said he estimated the
temperature in the car "conservatively" at 110 degrees. "Frankly, if someone
left their dog locked up in a car for 11/2 hours like this, they would be
arrested," he said.

Way to go MTA! Clearly the perception of your agency is in the dumps because you don't market well enough, not because you can't keep the system running or, when the system fails, treat your customers like human beings. And as more details come out, the worse the whole incident it sounds.

Heads should roll over this.....and maybe it's time for me to call (again) for a purge of senior leadership over at the MTA.

Murphy Campaign loses its own argument

2010-06-17T15:53:00.000-04:00

So the Brian Murphy campaign has been telling anybody who will listen that their guy can beat Martin O'Malley, whereas Governor Ehrlich can't. Somebody apparently did not tell their press shop, because I got this press release today straight from the Murphy campaign:

In the latest poll, O’Malley and Ehrlich were in a statistical dead-heat: 44% to 43%. However, only 28% definitely will vote for incumbent Governor O’Malley and 31% were firmly committed to former Governor, an “incumbent” once removed, Ehrlich.

In a match-up against Martin O’Malley, Brian Murphy trailed 44% to 25%, with 31% of voters undecided.

Kinda takes a hit to the electability argument, does it not? Probably something to do with the fact that, over the six-month course of this campaign, Murphy's name ID is hovering at 27%. Hard to imagine that if Murphy's name ID hasn't broken a third of the electorate in the last six months that the rate will continue to improve between now and the end of his campaign in September.

Makes you wonder how long before those few Murphy supporters out there realize that tilting at windmills with the potential spector of a second term for O'Malley is really worth it...

MTA Head Has Misplaced Priorities

2010-06-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

Michael Dresser reports on a roundtable with Transit Administrator Ralign Wells. And if you think the head of the MTA has his priorities straight well.....not necessarily:

"I'm very frustrated that there's a poor perception of transit," said MTA
Administrator Ralign Wells. "What I'm trying to do is change the perception of
transit."

Well....people the public has a poor perception for a pretty good reason, and it says a lot that the priority for Wells is to improve the pereception of transit, not actually improve transit itself.

Some of the other things that Wells notes goes from basic common sense budgeting stuff to the more....well, shall we say off the wall concepts of what's important.

Every other major transit system in America has a SmartCard system. WMATA introduced theirs in 2004....however MTA's is "still in development."

A 30-percent farebox recovery rate for Wells is "decent." Thiry-percent. We've talked about farebox recovery rates before, but what is even worse is what Wells delineates as the actual farebox recovery rates:

MTA Buses: 30 percent
Metro Subway: 28 percent
Light Rail: 18 percent
MARC: "Mid-30's percent"

Those recovery rates are absolutely unacceptable.

Then we get to safety issues:

"But he said suburbanites who do use the system can attest that it is safe.

That might be news to more than a few people just with the number of horror stories that just I have discussed over the years (though it isn't like the MTA got any help from Annapolis on this one). So the problem, Mr. Wells is not the pereception that the MTA system isn't safe; it's the fact that the MTA system in sections seems to not actually be safe.

But hey.....new uniforms for MTA operators will fix everything!

So how does Ralign Wells defer from his predecessor at MTA? Seemingly, he doesn't. There seems to continue to be this culture within MTA that the status quo is fine, that the system is safe, that low farebox recovery rates are acceptable to taxpayers, and that the problem is with the perception of the public and not the reality of the situation.

I hope that we will get the opportunity to deal with this change in culture with the change in Administration in the Governor's Mansion that will be coming this January...

The Potential Ripple Effect of Jim Smith's Withdrawal

2010-06-13T20:43:00.000-04:00

Last year, it seemed obvious that Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith was going to try to district shop his way into the State Senate when he moved to legislative District 7 in order to challenge for the seat left by Andy Harris' run for Congress this year. So it was somewhat surprising that Smith would drop out of the race, particularly in light of the huge war chest he had ammassed when he was contemplating a run for Comptroller.

That, however, does bring attention back to the stunt that Smith and his political backers are trying to pull with the Baltimore County Council.

Smith's campaign appartus, led by his son Michael Paul Smith and his former law clerk David Gildea, are trying to assemble a County Council full of Democrats who are at the beck and call of Baltimore County's Developers. One who half to presume that Smith's withdrawal will allow him to refund contributions made to his campaign in an effort to redistribute that money to the candidates his campaign team are trying to buy off to do the bidding of the developers.

And incidentally, guess who is most poised to benefit by the generosity of this potential class of County Council Members? Attorneys for Developers. And who would be better connectd to get a piece of this windfall than two development attorneys named....David Gildea and Michael Paul Smith.

Of course, what is the most interesting of all is the people who Smtih and Company have selected as their chosen ones to represent the interests of these developers:

In District 1, it's Tom Quirk. Quirk served with Gildea on the Board of the Community College of Baltimore County; his wife, Siri Svaeren, is a former Special Assistant to Jim Smith in the County Executive's office;
District 5's choice is Gorden Harden, who served 14 years on the planning board, owns and insurance company in Owings Mills, only recently moved to the 5th District and, according to court records has carved out quite a niche for himself as a professional defendent in a variety of matters.
In District 6 it's Cathy Bevins, who also worked six years in constituent service (reporting to Siri Svaeren, no less) who has been a personal friend and client of Michael Paul Smith for nearly two decades.
The next, unannounced addition to this unofficial slate will be Vicki Almond in the 2nd District, who other than being formerly in the employ of State Senator Bobby Zirkin, has no noted connection to Smith or Gildea other than the meeting Bryan Sears reported upon back in January.

All of these candidates are political neophytes, selected by Michael Smith and David Gildea over other, more qulaified candidates (even in Democratic primaries) who are poised to serve as nothing more than yes men and women for Baltimore County Developers if they are elected to the council. The money being raised for these candidates by the developers gives a whole new meaning to "retail politics."

Jim Smith's withdrawal from the Senate race may mean good things in Annapolis, with the winner of the J.B. Jennings vs. Al Redmer Republican primary poised to retain the seat for the minority in Annapolis. But Smith's decision, and the possible redistribution of wealth to the candidates hand picked by Smith's cronies to serve as fronts for the developers agenda could have far reaching reprecussions for voters across Baltimore County and across Maryland for the next decade.

Trends look bad for O'Malley

2010-06-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

The latest Rasmussen Poll has Governor Ehrlich and Martin O'Malley deadlocked at 45 a piece among likely voters.....but that's not the most interesting statistics in the Rasmussen release.

That would be this:

Still, a majority (53%) of voters in Maryland favor repeal of the recently passed national health care bill, slightly lower than the support for repeal found nationwide. Forty-two percent (42%) oppose repeal. This includes 42% who Strongly Favor repeal and 36% who Strongly Oppose it.

If a liberal state like Maryland isn't even on board with the Health Care bill, it means that you;ve got a lot of Democrats who are not on board with the direction of their party. And while disssatisfaction with national Democrats likely won't hurt O'Malley in 2010 as disssatisfaction with national Republicans did with Ehrlcih in 2006, some of the sins of Obama will be laid at the feet of O'Malley.

But that's not all:
Just 49% of Maryland voters favor passage of an immigration law like the new one in Arizona for their state, six points lower than support nationally. Thirty-eight percent (38%) oppose such a law, and 12% are not sure.

Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters in the state who favor a law like Arizona's back Ehrlich, while 80% of those opposed to such a law support O'Malley.

But nearly two-thirds (66%) of voters in Maryland support the central provision of the Arizona law, the requirement that local police check the immigration status of anyone pulled over for a traffic violation or some other kind of violation whom they suspect of being here illegally. Twenty-seven percent (27%) oppose that requirement.

Emphasis mine.

So even in a state as liberal as Maryland, a supermajority of voters support the basic tenet of the immigration legislation passed in Arizona. An interesting statsitic given the fact that illegal immigration issues rear their head from time to time in the area.

This poll doesn't suggest that it is a done deal, but the numbers are starting to look more and more yeasty for the re-election of Governor Ehrlich this November. Now go do your part to help.

How NOT to win friends or win elections

2010-06-09T22:59:00.000-04:00

Just when you think that you have seen everything in politics, you see something new.

Tonight I attended the Southern Maryland Young Republicans meeting in Prince Frederick, and the meeting featured bookend speakers for Delegate in District 27B, the winner earning the right to take on Sue Kullen. And the meeting ended with one of the stranger spectacles you will ever hear about.

The opening speaker was Bob Schaefer. Schaefer spoke about his perceived role of the General Assembly, and some of the things that he would do as a Delegate. He spoke on and on about his role, and stumbled a few times about who exactly does what when it comes to the role of Government, and fumbled a few softball questions that were thrown his way. Nothing earthshatteringly bad, but clearly a case of nerves from a novice candidate.

Once the club conducted the rest of their business, they heard a presentation from candidate Mark Fisher who spoke not about his camapaign, but about Cap and Trade. He presented the club with a slide show as it relates to Cap and Trade, how Marylanders are impacted by it, and how it relates to voters and citizens living in Calvert County. It was an impressive presentation, and during it he remained focused on the cap and trade issue, mentioning his candidacy only in passing.

As the meeting wrapped up, Schaefer stood and announced that "he had never seen anything so impolite" as when Fisher and his team were setting up a projector to present the Powerpoint presentation during Schaefer's remarks; something that most in the room didn't even know was occurring. While I thought that was a little uncalled for (and that I had certainly seen things less polite than this), I thought nothing much more it.

As it turns out Fisher went to shake hands with Schaefer as folks were filing out to leave. And at that point Bob Schaefer punched Mark Fisher in the stomach, in front of Fisher's children, no less. And nobody could believe what just happened. Fisher, being a reasonable fellow, decided (at last check) not to press charges in this bizarre incident.

I understand that sometimes primaries get heated, but this is just way way way over the line....and I kinda thought it was reasonably self-evident that you don't punch your primary opponents at any point in the campaign.

Needless to say, I think Bob Schaefer just punched himself out of the Delegate's race in 27B tonight.

A Jobs Policy that will actually put people to work

2010-06-07T19:30:00.001-04:00

Have you taken a look yet at Governor Ehrlich's Entrepreneur Agenda? You should, because it's the first time any statewide leaders have seriously come forth to address job creation to combat the O'Malley Recession:

Bob Ehrlich actually wants to do something to create an economic environment that will employ more Marylanders and improve the economic situation for Maryland's middle class families. Nothing sums up the current plight of small business owners than this:

Turning the economic tide requires a new approach to small business owners, who currently employ 1.2 million Marylanders. Since announcing his candidacy for Governor, Bob Ehrlich has met with more than 100 local entrepreneurs to discuss the hardships they face in Maryland. Nearly all of them believe they are an afterthought in the eyes of state government, and relay tales of being ignored, harassed, or given conflicting guidance from their state government.

And we are going to be able to do this through:

Creating an attitude more conducive to small business development throughout State Government;
Reversing the 20-percent sales tax, both as an incentive to bring small business back to Maryland, but to also provide a greater stimulus to spending an a better economic picture for Maryland families;
Review current policies that bring irreparable harm to small businesses;
Actually meeting with and discussing small business policies with small business owners.

In a nutshell, the next Ehrlich Administration will make owning a small business and creating jobs in Maryland easier. That is a far cry from what the O'Malleynomic antics of the current regime.

Why is this important? Because this is what the people want to talk about. The only thing that people around the state want to talk about right now is jobs, jobs, and jobs. The people of Maryland are fed up with Martin O'Malley and his inability to create a strong economic climate, and the people are fed up with Martin O'Malley and his administration continuing to adopt policies that harm the plight of Maryland's middle and working class families. And they are tired of Martin O'Malley trying to say that he's a jobs governor when so many Marylanders are unemployed due to his fiscal irresponsibility.

In the meantime, O'Malley flack Rick Abbruzzese has the unfortunate task of responding on behalf of the O'Malley-Brown campaign and hoping that his nose didn't grow:

"This is not a plan. Bob Ehrlich's so-called plan is all talk and no action - he is proposing a commission, a summit, a task force, three reviews and two explorations, but nothing to actually create jobs or help small businesses struggling because of the global recession."

Here's the pot calling the kettle block; because it was just last week that Martin O'Malley, after three years of destroying jobs, finally realized that jobs would be an issues in the campaign and responded by.....proposing a commission.

"This lip service is insulting because Maryland's small businesses and families expect and deserve more from a former governor. As governor, Bob Ehrlich actually proposed the largest-ever increase in state spending and increased taxes and fees that hurt Maryland's small businesses and families, while benefiting special interests. Now as a lobbyist, Bob Ehrlich has spent the last four years helping his clients export American jobs, bail out Wall Street banks, and defend giant oil companies.

Well, give the O'Malley/Democrat coordinated campaign one thing; they are coordinated. Never mind the fact that O'Malley and the Democrats are kings of special interests, the kings and queens of lobbying, and of course the drainers of oil recovery funds. But hey...Team O'Malley never let the facts get in the way of their goals, right?

"In stark contrast, Governor O'Malley has delivered results, including the Job Creation and Recovery Tax Credit to put unemployed Marylanders back to work and a rapid response small business loan guaranty program to get credit flowing again to our small businesses."

Martin O'Malley did in fact deliver results, if your idea of "results" is thousands of closed businesses, forcing Marylanders out of state, record unemployment, unconscionable and immoral tax increases, reduced tax revenues, and record budget shortfalls . To put it bluntly, the only result Martin O'Malley has delivered has proof that he is unprepared to lead Maryland out of the fiscal mess he has created.

Voters have a choice in this election. A choice between sticking with Martin O'Malley and his recession, or choosing Bob Ehrlich and change that will benefit all Marylanders. Click here to help Governor Ehrlich make that change.

Dispatches from Planet Turnbull

2010-06-07T18:59:00.000-04:00

Once again, the lights seem to not be on out wherever Susan is:

Bob Ehrlich headed back to Montgomery County today to make more empty promises. He keeps saying how important Montgomery County voters are in getting elected. However, Bob Ehrlich has a funny way of courting Montgomery County voters; he insults us behind our backs.

And where did Bob Ehrlich allegedly do this? On a 50,000 watt radio station. One that, shall we say, covers the entire area where Governor Ehrlich was allegedly doing this.

Only Susan Turnbull, who as we know is a bit out there, could come up with such hooey.

Look, I understand that Maryland Democrats are going to criticize Governor Ehrlich and try to try to cover up for the shortcomings of Martin O'Malley. But if this kind of crap is the best that they can come up with.....then the election is already over.

Campaign 101: Silver Bullets

2010-06-03T21:09:00.000-04:00

I would like to take a brief second to talk about winning campaigns and losing campaigns.

You see, most people think that television advertising is the "silver bullet" of politics. That one great television ad will win an election for a candidate, particularly a primary election. I will use this as an excuse to embed the most badass campaign commercial of all time, which hopefully you have seen already:

So how did Dale Peterson do in the Alabama Agriculture Commissioners race? Third. Why? Well, it probably wasn't thugs and criminals, but it's hard to say exactly why he lost. But the point I'm trying to make is that this television commercial, while awesome and earning Peterson a ton of free local and national media, did not vault Peterson to the Republican nomination.

The lesson for candidates here in Maryland is this: never rely on the silver bullet. Some candidates may think that their silver bullet is a TV ad. For others it might be public service endorsements, or a particular volunteer fundraiser , or one of a hundred different things. The fact of the matter is that in local elections, all of these things are required in order to win; personal contact, dedicated volunteers, fundraising, community support, and yes paid media such as mailers and TV commercials.

But any candidates whose strategy is predicated on skirting by on one endorsement, one TV ad, one website, or one other wizbang idea.....don't waste your time, my time, or the time of your volunteers.

Google-perplexing

2010-06-01T20:41:00.001-04:00

It its clearly obvious that the people in Martin O'Malley's office do not know how to use Google.

Martin O'Malley, in his continuing effort to try to cover up the fact that he has destroyed more Maryland jobs than any other Governor in the nation, launched a new O'Malleynomic initiative today:

At remarks made this morning at a conference in Rockville, Gov. Martin O'Malley was expected to announce an administrative and legislative initiative to spur venture capital investment in Maryland's technology sector.
The program is called "InvestMaryland" and it will be run by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.
The governor called it "a public-private partnership to fuel venture capital investment in our innovation economy, such as bioscience companies," according to prepared remarks given to The Baltimore Sun.

So what in O'Malley's mind how will this program work? The Sun comes through with his explanation:

Insurance companies will be eligible for state issued tax credits and in turn they would invest dollars today in Maryland’s venture infrastructure. These credits will be deferred until 2015. A minimum of half these investments will flow into the Maryland Venture Fund. The balance will flow into Maryland based venture capital firms for the purposes of getting critical capital to Maryland businesses so they can create jobs and advance innovation in fields like the biosciences.

So what does it actually mean in the real world? Red Maryland has you covered with exclusive coverage of Martin O'Malley's internal monologue:

We will convince insurance companies to invest money in the state of Maryland and hope that they notice that the Governor has no pants and the effect of this program won't take effect until any potential O'Malley second term is over, when they realize that Martin O'Malley has no idea what he is doing when it comes to economic growth and development; in reality, venture capital will flow to Virginia where local and state political leaders actual welcome companies with policies that encourage job creation and economic development. But it's OK......because chicks dig me because I'm in a band.

Right....

Anyhoo, the name of this program is very curious because the name "Invest Maryland" has a history in this state when it comes to investing in our state. And it's not a good one:

Invest Maryland sued by state Suit alleges company misled investors refunds are sought September 19, 1995|By Kim Clark | Kim Clark,SUN STAFF The state's top securities regulator yesterday sued Invest Maryland Corp., charging that the Annapolis-based company misled investors who put up seed money to start a combined life insurer, stock brokerage and buffalo burger fast-food chain. In a 29-page civil complaint, Securities Commissioner Robert N. McDonald asked the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to appoint a receiver to manage the company and to order Invest Maryland to offer refunds to investors. In a separate action, the commissioner yesterday also gave Invest Maryland Chairman Dennis K. McLaughlin 15 days to show cause why he shouldn't be barred from engaging in securities or investment activities in Maryland. Mr. McDonald said in the administrative order that he took the actions because he had "determined that [Mr. McLaughlin] engaged in dishonest or unethical practices in the securities business by offering and selling securities in violation" of the state securities law. Attorneys for Invest Maryland executives didn't return messages asking for comment last night.

Now you would think that the O'Malley team, in their infinite wisdom, would not name some pie in the sky venture capital scheme after a failed pie in the sky venture capital scheme from fifteen years ago. I mean, it takes two minutes to find this stuff on Google. But then again.....nobodoy, least of all people like us, have considered that Team O'Malley knows the slightest thing about job creation and putting people back to work. O'Malley and company has done a fantastic job putting people out of work and creating a less favorable economic climate for Maryland's middle and working class families. But actually bringing jobs to Maryland? No.

To put it simply; if Martin O'Malley's economic team can't figure out Google, how can they figure out the economy?

The Scent of Irony

2010-05-25T21:55:00.000-04:00

This week, Maryland's First Lady Katie O'Malley is making a big push to stop bullying in our public schools.

So then, I wonder why her husband Martin O'Malley refuses to condemn the intimidation and bullying by union thugs of an innocent 14-year old boy trapped in his home?

So does that mean that Martin O'Malley supports all kinds of bullying, or just the bullying of his political opponents?

Slick Spots

2010-05-25T21:15:00.000-04:00

Martin O'Malley's endorsement of union violence isn't the only bad decision that's coming back to bite him. After all, his pronouncements about oil washing up on Maryland's shores sure looks stupid considering it was O'Malley who took over 20 percent of the state's Oil Disaster Cleanup Fund to cover his excessive spending in other areas.

Of course, we have documented Martin O'Malley's irresponsible budgeting for some time now. Maybe O'Malley doesn't understand that you have contingency funds such as the Oil Disaster Cleanup Fund in case of a contingency such as the need to fund an Oil Disaster Cleanup, not to line the pockets of the union thugs and special interests who support his candidacy.

With Martin O'Malley in Annapolis, you get a Governor who never has your best interests at heart. It's past time to put the adults back in charge in Annapolis. Just another reason Red Maryland backs Bob.

Purple Shirted Punks

2010-05-24T22:00:00.000-04:00

By now, you might have heard of the absolutely abhorrent scene in Montgomery County where 500 SEIU protesters showed up on the lawn of a Bank of American lawyer and scared the hell out of the lawyer's 14-year old son, who was home alone at the time......well, that is if you get your news from places that aren't the Baltimore Sun or Washington Post, who seem to have punted on the story.

Nobody was charged with trespassing. Nobody was charged with inciting a riot. Nobody was charged with anything. Never mind the fact that every one of these protesters was on the lawyer's property illegal. This apparently is perfectly acceptable behavior in Montgomery County.

Of course, this isn't acceptable behavior anywhere in a free country, whether or not you're doing it in support of the right or of the left. As Erick Erickson said:

When it becomes fair game to attack and intimidate private citizens and their families to advance a public policy, we cross over from an orderly civil democracy to something decidedly third world.

And that's what this is. Third-world thuggery from purple-shirted SEIU punks. It's an embarrasment to the country that these people are taken seriously.....

.....oh, you think that the SEIU isn't taken seriously? Because all you have to do is take a look at the White House employee roster or guest list to see that the SEIU is a big player in Barack Obama's White House.

But I'm not even going to focus on that. Because the SEIU is more importantly a major in the Maryland Democratic Party as we have referenced before. A huge source of funding for the Democratic establishment. What Senator Mac Middleton referred to as "the hand that feeds you."The people who bus rioters to Queen Anne's County to protest Obamacare. An intergral part of the Thugocracy.

Of course what that means is that the Purple Menace is an integral part to the victory strategy of Martin O'Malley and Susan Turnbull's Democratic Party. And there has been not a peep from either of the two regarding this embarrassing and crass display that occured right in their backyard.

In this case silence is acquiescence and acceptance of the SEIU's antics and behavior. Therefore, I am demanding that Governor Martin O'Malley and Maryland Democratic Party Chairman Susan Turnbull condemn and repudiate the intimidation and violation of civil rights the SEIU brought forth upon this lawyer's family. Anything short of all full condemnation and a full repudiation will tell me anyway that Martin O'Malley and Maryland Democrats are in support of thuggish violence against their opposition.

It's time for honest Democrats to take a stand against this third-world way of participating in the process. But sadly, I do not for one second believe that Martin O'Malley or the Maryland Democratic Party has the guts to take such a principled stand.

Call Martin O'Malley and Susan Turnbull and let them know that Maryland will not stand for extremism:

Governor Martin O'Malley
Email: governor@gov.state.md.us
Phone: 410-974-3901; 1-800-811-8336

Matthew Gallagher, Governor's Chief of Staff
Email: mgallagher@gov.state.md.us
Phone: 410-974-5258

Democratic Party Chair Susan Turnbull
Email: sturnbull@mddems.org
Phone: 410-269-8818; 301-858-8818

Democratic Party Executive Director Travis Tazelaar
Email: ttazelaar@mddems.org
Phone: 410-269-8818

Ground Control to Susan Turnbull.....do you copy?

2010-05-24T19:48:00.000-04:00

Susan Turnbull has completely lost touch with reality.

As you might have heard, the Office of Attorney General Doug Gansler has cleared WBAL radio and Governor Bob Ehrlich from any alleged wrongdoing in the continuation of Governor Ehrlich's Radio Show on WBAL. You can read the opinion here.

Susan Turnbull, the blithering chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party issued a response to this which is somewhat otherworldly:

Today’s opinion is not surprising given that Bob Ehrlich is using a loophole in the law to keep his talk show on WBAL-radio. Common sense and Bob Ehrlich’s own actions clearly show that he is a candidate for governor. By exploiting a technicality in the law to absurdly claim he is not a candidate, he has managed to lawyer his way out of playing by the rules. Bob Ehrlich is violating the spirit of this law, just like he continues to use his Womble Carlye lobbying firm as his campaign headquarters. Bob Ehrlich is violating the spirit of the law, and he knows it. But like most lobbyists, Bob Ehrlich is willing to use whatever loophole he can to get what he wants for himself and his clients.

Mind you, an I think I need to emphasize this for the Democrats that seem to be a little not so swift on the uptake, a Democratic Attorney General agreed that Bob Ehrlich and WBAL committed no wrongdoing, and your droning on about it makes you look stupid.

And of course, if you read the opinion, you will note that the opinion relies heavily on the protections of the First Amendment. So it would appear to a cynic, at least, that Susan Turnbull and the Maryland Democratic Party are opposed to your First Amendment rights.

Of course, Turnbull and the Democrats look equally stupid when they go blabbing onand on about lobbyists when lobbyists who actually committed crimes are revered as the highest, holiest saints of the Democratic Party.

Susan Turnbull has lost all sense of political reality and political sense, if she had any at all. Turnbull's continuous blabbering about grievances real or imagined while hoping people don't look behind the Democratic curtain, and goes to show how much of a tailspin Maryland's Democratic Party is heading into Martin O'Malley's impending defeat this November.

Democrats hate lobbyists...

2010-05-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

...unless they ARE the lobbyists.

Screwball Antics Continue to Mar AA Nominating Commission

2010-05-15T15:30:00.001-04:00

The Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission process continues to provide us with new and wondrous screwball antics that continue to show why the process should never have been created in the first place:

Three years after the state legislature revamped the way members are placed on the county Board of Education, confusion over the details continues to muck up the process.
In another case in point this week, the commission that nominates candidates to the governor for appointment relied on a new opinion from the state Attorney General's Office to conclude that board President Ned Carey was seeking another term.
Meanwhile, Carey was reading the law differently.
"My understanding was, the way the law read, by not submitting an application, I would not be considered," he said Thursday. "It wasn't my intention to run."
Just a day earlier, Joshua Greene, chairman of the School Board Nominating Commission, had said Carey was definitely still in the running even though he had not submitted an application, because under a ruling by the attorney general, incumbents don't have to be vetted. Their names go straight to the governor for consideration.
"He'll have his name forwarded, and that's it," Greene said.

Read the whole thing.....and incidentally I find it extremely curious that nobody asked these questions when two Republicans were up for reappointment to the School Board, and thus allowed them to go through the public confirmation process.

This kind of slapstick comedy shows exactly why a Nominating Commission process continues to lack legitimacy (in addition, of course, to the other well documented reasons why such a process is a travesty foisted upon county residents). The fact of the matter is that the General Assembly in creation of Nominating Commission process punted on a lot of the nitty gritty details of the process. That might not be a bad thing, except for the minor detail that the Nominating Commission is made up of political hacks who don't seem to be bothered to actually give a damn.

This process involving Ned Carey is a joke, and continues to undermine whatever credibility the Nominating Commission might have had by providing adequate incumbency protection by allowing sitting members to circumvent the process. And once again, it is necessary to point out that legitimate elections would eliminate all of the cloak and dagger stuff, opinions from the office of the Attorney General, and the lack of credibility in the process, and replace it with a process that would adequately provide representation for the students, parents, teachers and taxpayers of Anne Arundel County...

Hartley ignores Legum's shady side

2010-05-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

Eric Hartley had a write-up in today's Capital about District 30, including a few brief words about left wing darling Judd Legum. The way that Hartley presented Legum left out, shall we say, a few key details:

Judd Legum, a 31-year-old Democratic candidate for delegate, walks a narrow line as he makes his first run for office. Unlike the Republicans, he's not running against the Democratic power structure. Legum is hoping to knock off Del. Ron George, the Republican incumbent, and see his fellow Democrats re-elected.
At the same time, Legum doesn't want to be too closely associated with the old-line Democrats in the district, at least publicly.
"I think we could benefit from new energy and fresh thinking in the state legislature," said Legum, an attorney who lives in downtown Annapolis. "I come from a different generation, have a different perspective on things."

There are, as usual in things associated with Legum, a certain level of untruthiness to the things that he said, as we have documented at Red Maryland. One of the two most glaring of those things, of course is that Legum has "fresh thinking" that is going to shake up the state legislature, when Legum's far-left ideology is the same old tried and true, tax and tax and tax, do as I say not as I do, statist politics that have brought Maryland to the bring of financial collapse.

The other, of course, is that fact that Legum isn't fighting the establishment; he IS the establishment, considering that he has worked for ethically challenged establishment Democrats, that he is bought and paid for by Washington lobbyists and Clinton staffers, out of state Democratic interests, and of course might be receiving donations of questionable legality. It's hard for Legum to fight the problems within the Democratic Party when he is part of the problem with the Democratic Party.

But the somehow, Hartley completely ignores Legum's being the brains behind the deceitful and thuggish Center for American Progress, who just found themselves caught in another lie this week about the net neutrality legislation.

Not my problem with Hartley's story is not the fact that Hartley mentioned Legum in his story. It's the fact that the mainstream media, most glaringly the Capital, has completely ignored this race and the skeletons in Judd Legum's closet. The truth is out there; why won't the Capital report it other than to protect just another establishment, out of touch Democrat running for office?

Of course, that's why blogs like this one exist....not only do we provide a voice for Maryland's middle and working class families, but we also work hard to keep frauds like Judd Legum from being elected to office.

Salisbury is the Place to Be this June

2010-05-11T20:32:00.001-04:00

What are you doing June 18th, 19th and 20th?

Do you want the opportunity to meet and network with Republicans from up and down the East Coast and across the country?
Do you want to have the opportunity to meet Governor Bob Ehrlich, State Senator Andy Harris, State Republican Party Chair Audrey Scott, and other leading Republicans?
Do you want to learn more about campaign strategy, new media, and other facets of running a successful campaign?
And, most importantly....do you want to have some fun with fellow conservatives?

Join us June 18-20 in Salisbury for the 2010 Maryland Young Republican Convention and Leadership Conference, sponsored by the Maryland Young Republicans. It is going to be a great opportunity for Republicans from across Maryland and across the region to get together, discuss the future of our state and our party, and create the lasting relationships that are necessary so that we can work together to win back our state from the Democratic establishment.

If you have any questions about the event, just ask me.

Ignore the Hype: This is a Dead Heat

2010-05-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

I think we all know what the headline from this morning's Washington Post story said about the Governor's race: O'Malley has 8-point lead over Ehrlich among registered voters.

And it is in the headline that shows exactly why the headline is misleading, and why this race is already too close to call.

The key point of the headline and of the poll results as they are reported by John Wagner, Aaron Davis and Jon Cohen is that Martin O'Malley is far ahead of Bob Ehrlich when you restrict the data to registered voters; in that case, O'Malley has 49-41 lead. The problem with that part of the poll, however, is that while it deals with a statistically significant number of voters for the scope of a statewide race, the results are just that; registered voters.

That 49-41 number is not indicative of the people who are actually going to go vote in the polls on Election Day. As the Post story notes (but in the second paragraph, naturally) is that among those individuals who are certain to vote on election day, Bob Ehrlich and Martin O'Malley are tied 47-47.

Of course, a poll of registered voters and a poll of certain voters are both reasonably meaningless; the real action in polling is in the realm of likely voters, because those are the margins that make the difference in an election as close as this one. And for reasons that I cannot begin to fathom, the Post neglected to poll on the one number that would actually make for a relevant story.

Nobody should make too much out of this, but given the data that is available it is safe to say that this race is undoubtedly in the margin of error. Forget the headline, forget the hype, and forget the people trying to make too much out of the results of this poll; the race can't get any tighter than this, and O'Malley and Company are already feeling the heat as evidence by O'Malley's babyish rants on WTOP this morning.....

Of Course He Does

2010-05-10T19:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to wax too poetic about the fact that Anne Arundel School Superintendent Kevin Maxwell wants more money in his budget and that he is predicting doom and gloom if County Executive John Leopold's budget isn't adjusted to provide more funding for education. Given his record of telling the county to drop dead, Kevin Maxwell demanding more money in his budget (and of course, calling for higher taxes to go with them) is about as shocking as the sky being blue these days. It remains, of course, a sad indictment of modern education that in the minds of these mindless bureaucrats that money equals success, but that is not the point that I want to make (again).

The point I (again) want to make is the fact that the Anne Arundel County Board of Education that allows Maxwell to act like this is made up completely of unelected bureaucrats, only one of which (the Red Maryland-endorsed Vic Bernson) has any fiscal sense among them. Every single one of them is a Democratic appointed, Democratic endorsed flunky who seeks more and more spending to keep the unions happy and higher and higher taxes to pay for it. And not one of them is truly representative of the parents, teachers, and taxpayers of Anne Arundel County because nobody elected these people.

Until we the people here in Anne Arundel County can elect the members of our Board of Education, there is nobody who can hold Kevin Maxwell responsible for his irresponsible spending and his refusal to spend within the means of the County budget. We are well past the need for true reform of how we select our county's school board members...

Help Out

2010-05-04T20:43:00.001-04:00

This is something entirely almost not politically related, but I'm co-captain of the Anne Arundel Young Republicans team in the Relay for Life being held in Arnold next Friday night.

Please consider sending a donation to support our team and my efforts to fight cancer. Thanks for your support.

Seeing the Light?

2010-04-26T20:00:00.000-04:00

You will never guess who wrote this lament:

So the resulting energy tax hike is both large and narrowly targeted: at the people who create jobs.

The author of that revelation was none other than......Adam Pagnucco.

Yes....Adam Pagnucco has realized that Democrats, when they go out to raise taxes, invariable raise taxes either directly on Maryland's middle and working class families, or they raise them on the companies that employ Maryland's middle and working class families. In the instance of this tax increase, proposed by Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett as a business energy tax, the cost of the tax will be doubly born by the people of Montgomery County. On one hand, all Montgomery County residents who frequent these businesses will be faced with increased costs in an effort to offset the cost of the tax. On the other, a number of jobs that would otherwise be created by these Montgomery County businesses may not be created due to the burden created by Leggett's tax.

All that being said, I would like to welcome Adam Pagnucco as a visitor over here to the real world, as he examines this and other tax proposals by Maryland Democrats that would further devastate our state's economy, and harm the standard of living for Maryland's middle and working class families.

Holy Day for Hypocrites

2010-04-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

So in case you've been living under a rock, today is Earth Day. And in what ways do the world's "climate warriors" celebrate Earth Day?

Well, if you're Martin O'Malley, you log 800 miles driving across Maryland on taxpayer dollars to prop up your sagging re-election campaign. This of course, coming weeks after he had an SUV waiting for him to hitch a ride home in lieu of a tough three minute walk home from the bar.

If you're the President and Vice-President, you both fly separately to New York, tying up air traffic for hours. Of course, you really don't want the President and Vice-President to fly on the same plane for obvious reasons. But when you're flying Joe Biden to New York to be on The View...

If you're a rock star or a music lover, you go down to Washington for the Earth Day 2010 Climate Rally being held on the National Mall, which might have some sort of record for biggest carbon footprint in support of lowering carbon footprints since LiveEarth. I drove past the Mall today, and the number of tents, booths, trash receptacles and whatnot that have been brought to the Mall for this event is impressive. Obviously, they didn't bring these things to the Mall in a Pedicab; they were brought in by big, nasty, diesel trucks that spewed all sorts of nasty emissions into the local atmosphere. And to entertain the masses, the organizers of this event are flying in all sorts of people for the event; Jesse Jackson, James Cameron, Dhani Jones, Margaret Atwood, Sting, John Legend, The Roots, and more. How do you think these folks got to DC? They didn't ride Barack Obama's low-emission unicorns powered by rainbow energy, that's for sure.

Look, all of us support making sure we have a clean environment; I mean it was a Republican that basically invented conservation as a national policy. And that's what environmentalism should focus on; conservationism. Conserving our natural resources and not wasting them. Not using environmentalism as a cudgel to push a radical social agenda, and certainly not an excuse to lecture the masses about it while having carbon footprints many times larger than the average citizen.

But then again, like many holidays, Earth Day has become the focal point of a movement, a day for excess and double standards. For these so-called "climate warriors", however, the average taxpayer sees through their shams and recognize them for the hypocrites they are...

O'Malley knows he's losing

2010-04-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

Desperation is setting in early on the second floor....

The game of chess between the O'Malley and Ehrlich camps began today, with Governor O'Malley challenging Governor Ehrlich to a debate this Saturday during Ehrlich's radio show, with Governor Ehrlich countering with the offering of a mano-a-mano conversation between the two (which I, for one, would think would be fascinating radio).

Team O'Malley's challenge of a debate is a classic political gambit, trying to take the opposing candidate out of their comfort zone by being generally pesky and annoying.

However, there is one minor detail about the tradition of this gambit; it is invariably only played by a challenger or a candidate who is trailing in the polls. A strong incumbent would never play this card, particularly this early in the campaign.

Is Team O'Malley's opening gambit a tacit admission that their candidate is the underdog? Or is it merely a way to lower their campaign's polling and fundraising expectations? Only time will tell, but clearly it seems to be the opening salvo from a campaign that wants nothing to do with running on Martin O'Malley's record of failure, Martin O'Malley's record tax hikes, Martin O'Malley's record spending, and Martin O'Malley's inability to effectively govern.

Expect similar gambits from the O'Malley camp from here on out.

2010 Baseball Predictions

2010-04-03T23:47:00.000-04:00

I did such a great job last year, (though to be fair, I got five out of eight of my division and wild-card picks right) that it's time to give it another run.

AL East: Tampa Bay, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto
AL Central: Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City
AL West: Los Angeles, Seattle, Texas, Oakland

NL East: Philadelphia, Florida, Atlanta, New York, Washington
NL Central: Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh
NL West: Colorado, Los Angeles, Arizona, San Francisco, San Diego

AL Champion: Tampa Bay
NL Champion: Philadelphia

World Champion: Philadelphia

In$urance Follie$

2010-04-01T20:15:00.001-04:00

Maryland's Legislative Democrats continue to wage war on the working poor on behalf of their trial lawyer benefactors in Annapolis, as the bill to raise minimum insurance premiums continues to work its way through the legislative process.

Lobbyist Minor Carter pretty much said the most relevant and succinct thing about this bill: "It's a tax upon the poor people of our state." Mainly because the customers most likely to be impacted by the bill are the drivers who are on MAIF, the state's insurerer of last resort:

The Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund, the state's provider of auto coverage for high-risk motorists who can't obtain it on the open market, said 98.6 percent of its customers would absorb the increase. According to MAIF, which opposes the bill, the change would require rate increases between 6.1 percent and 9.3 percent.

And it's being brought to you by Maryland's Democrats.

As we said before, this is all part of the O'Malley Administration's Christmas in April trial lawyer handout program, or as Senator EJ Pipkin called it "the Trial Lawyers Relief Act of 2010." It is completely inexcusable that these Democrats (and the nine Republicans in the House who voted for this bill) are trying to stick it to Maryland's working poor in this manner, and to benefit nobody by the trial lawyers lobby.

It's a shame, but entirely unsurprising, that Maryland's Democrats want to screw the poor in such an unscrupulous way...

A Piece for me, but not for thee

2010-04-01T20:02:00.000-04:00

Buried in the story about Baltimore City Council President Jack Young's dwelling status (itself, of course, somewhat scandalous given the fact the guy is not living where he says he lives) is this gem:

Young said he uses Madison Street as his official residence to protect his family, claiming that neighborhood drug dealers had threatened him a few years ago. Then he flashed something even more startling than presidential skivvies: concealed-weapon permits. Young said he doesn't carry a gun but that he got permission to do so after dealers warned him to "watch your back."

"I want to keep people off balance," he said. "I'm afraid, like everybody else."

Yup. Another elected Democrat who has the right to carry a concealed weapon....even though, under Maryland law, you and I can't legally carry a weapon without going through an onerous and intrusive permitting process.

I don't begrudge Jack Young the fact that he can legally carry a weapon; I begrudge the fact that he is not trying to make the streets safer by allowing the common man to carry one, particularly on streets as dangerous as Baltimore's.

Trial Lawyers will get their Christmas in April....but why did some Republicans tie on the bow?

2010-03-26T22:37:00.001-04:00

It's Christmas in April for Trial Lawyers in Annapolis! One of their pet bills has passed out of the House of Delegates....with some Republican support, no less. And at the end of the day, taxpayers are going to be the ones left holding the bag.

House Bill 825 passed out of the House earlier this week. The bill increases the minimum amount of coverage for injury or death related to a car accident from $20,000 or $40,000 (for one or two cars) to $30,000 or $60,000 (for one or two cars).

And it's a that point that things patently fly off the handle. As part of the process, insurance companies are going to need to create a new classification of insurance policy. The standard slotting for insurance policies across the country have always been incremental. They current $20,000/$40,000 slot is standard across the country. The next slot is $25,000/$50,000, the standard in the District of Columbia. The slot after that jumps to $50,000/$100,000. Insurance companies are going to have to create a whole new classification of policy specifically to deal with Maryland if this passes....a policy which, incidentally the Sun points ou t will be among the highest liability coverage rates in the nation.

When you are increasing costs to the insurance companies, for having to create an entirely new classification of policy, while at the same time increasing the required coverage for policyholders, guess who is going to be left holding the bag. Consumers. But it won't impact most consumers....

No, the brunt of this impact will be felt by low-income Marylanders, the same middle and working class families that Democrats routinely go out of there way to stick it to. As a matter of fact, almost the entirety of the premium increase will be taken out of MAIF's policy holders., which of course lead to some drivers driving without misurance altogether. As House Minority Leader Tony O'Donnell so poignantly noted:

"This bill is going to hurt people at the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder," said House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell. "It's a tax increase. Call it something else. It's a burden that's going to come out of their pockets."

This bill is, at its most basic level, a ten-percent increase in insurance premiums for those least able to afford a ten-percent increase in insurance premiums. It's why the Democrats don't blink a passing such an expense on to the taxpayers, because their raison d'etre is to hurt people at the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder to enrich their special interest buddies.....

....which leads me to the Christmas in April title of this post. You see, this bill is being championed by two groups of people:

The O'Malley Administration
The Trial Lawyers that keep the O'Malley campaign awash in contributions.

Within the Administration, there has been a gag order on this bill. Leadership at the Maryland Insurance Administration is against this. Leadership at MAIF is against this. But they have been gagged on the orders from the Second Floor of the State House to stay out of the way and let this pass. Insurance companies are also opposing this as well, because it's an administrative burden on them and will increase their cost of doing business in the state of Maryland as well.

This friends is O'Malley's gift to the trial lawyers. Presumably, it's to make sure that his campaign stays funded this fall.....but it may also be a tacit admission that the O'Malley Campaign and his trial lawyer allies have no confidence whatsoever in O'Malley's ability to get himself re-elected.

Incidentally, this isn't the only O'Malley give away to the trial lawyers; SB 119 has passed out of the Senate, a constitutional amendment that would raise from $10,000 to $20,000 the minimum amount of damages that would be required to be sough in order to guarantee the right to a jury trial....

O'Malley's Christmas in April give-a-way to the trial lawyers is bad enough. But then nine Republicans broke with the caucus and decided to vote with O'Malley on this issue. If anybody would like to explain why the following Republican Delegates broke ranks with their party and decided that Marylanders need to pay more for insurance, I'm all ears:

Bob Costa
Donald Elliott
Rick Impallaria
James King
Pat McDonough
Tanya Shewell
Mike Smigiel
Donna Stifler
Nancy Stocksdale

These are the kind of a votes where we need a cohesive Republican Caucus that stands up for taxapayers and not special interests...and it is VERY hard for us Republicans to make the argument that we are a better choice for Maryland's middle and working class families when we've got such a large percentage of the Republican caucus going off the reservation and siding with Governor O'Malley and the trial lawyers.

The people of Maryland, particular those Marylanders who are least able to pay, should not be subject to Martin O'Malley's giveaways to his trial lawyer special interest buddies. We owe it to ourselves and to the future of our state to make our opinion's about Governor O'Malley and his handouts at the ballot box this November.

Making it Up as He Goes

2010-03-26T21:43:00.000-04:00

Allan Lichtman must be hard up for attention, or he must owe somebody in the Obama Administration a favor. Because Lichtman today boldly predicted that Barack Obama is a shoe-in for re-election.

No, really, he did.

The raconteur/professor/former Senate Candidate/space cadet uses his "13 keys to the Presidency" which he claims can accurately predict who will win the next Presidential Election. Using his "keys", he says Barack Obama will be re-elected.

Of course, Lichtman's interpretation of the keys leaves a bit to be desired:

KEY 1 (Party Mandate): After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections. (FALSE)

Well, so far that seems to be going in the right direction. It seems like the Democrats are going to get clobbered at the ballot box, but let's not get too cocky. I'll agree and see False.

KEY 2 (Contest): There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination. (TRUE)

I'm classifying this as to-be-determined. Anybody who seriously thinks that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is going to walk away with a $13 million federal war chest and not seriously consider challenging the President from the center is sorely mistaken. And Bayh would, in all likelihood, do serious damage to Obama in the primaries.

KEY 3 (Incumbency): The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president. (TRUE)

Can't argue with that.

KEY 4 (Third party): There is no significant third party or independent campaign. (TRUE)

Also to-be-determined. As much as Republicans hope that the Tea Party Movement doesn't spawn off a serious third party or independent campaign, that could be incredibly wishful thinking depending on who the Republican nominee is in 2012.

KEY 5 (Short-term economy): The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. (TRUE)

Only a moron would say that the economy in 2012 is going to not be in recession. I'm not saying it is, but given this President's economic policy it is wishful thinking to think things are going to be better. I would label this as to-be-determined.

KEY 6 (Long-term economy): Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. (FALSE)

More than likely, Lichtman's got this right. I'll agree.

KEY 7 (Policy change): The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. (TRUE)

Well, so far that's true insofar as health care reform has passed. However, Lichtman automatically assumes that this is a positive for Obama. Lichtman's model does not take into account the fact that such a change was railroaded through Congress against the will of the people. Nor does it assume the possibility that a change in party could radically change the makeup of the aforementioned change prior to its full implementation. I will agree that this is true....but it's an albatross around Obama's campaign neck.

KEY 8 (Social unrest): There is no sustained social unrest during the term. (TRUE)

Which is interesting, because if you believe MSNBC Tea Partiers are running amok. But be that as it may it is true.....for now.

KEY 9 (Scandal): The administration is untainted by major scandal. (TRUE)

I'm not sure what planet Lichtman is from. The entire administration has basically been one scandal right after another. If only somebody predicted two years ago that Barack Obama was a scandal in a box.....

So yeah....false.

KEY 10 (Foreign/military failure): The administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. (TRUE)

Also to-be-determined. Because in case you didn't notice....America's approval ratings are in the dumps since Obama took over. If you want to get really technically, the collapse of the Copenhagen climate summit could be consider a "major failure" in foreign affairs, but that would imply that such a failure was a bad thing.

KEY 11 (Foreign/military success): The administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. (FALSE)

Agreed.

KEY 12 (Incumbent charisma): The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. (FALSE)

Amen to that

KEY 13 (Challenger charisma): The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. (TRUE)

Also to be determined because neither Lichtman, nor me, or the Lord above knows who is going to be the Republican nominee in 2012. It could be virtually anybody. and until such a time as we know who the Republican nominee is, any speculation as to the answer to this is completely pointless.

So by my count, we've got three trues, five falses, and five to-be-determineds. What does that mean for Barack Obama's chances in 2012 as of right now? Absolutely nothing.

The problem with such speculative yarns as Allan Lichtman is trying to write is that he is trying to apply a historical formula to an event before it happens. When you combine his historical pre-analysis with his moonbeam liberal biases, you get a completely warped view of the political environment in an effort to prop up a failed administration. Lichtman, in his analysis, is just making it up as he goes. His analysis has no value.

Blue Pills for Bad People

2010-03-24T21:41:00.000-04:00

In their never ending quest to ram health care down our throat, Maryland's two Senators decided that we should make sure that child molesters and sex offenders should still have access to Viagra and other sexually enhancing drugs.

No, really.

Apparently, passing a health care bill nobody wants is more important to Maryland's Democratic Senators than ensuring very bad people don't get federally funded prescriptions that help them be very bad people.

How sad. How pathetic.

They Just Don't Get It

2010-03-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

Some people just don't get it. I refer you to the latest comments by Adam Pagnucco as it relates to budget and taxation here in Maryland.

On a post in which in he is discussing the shifting of teacher pensions from a state to a county responsibility, Pagnucco drops the following:

If Montgomery wants to preserve the quality of its schools, it must put up a tough fight and negotiate only when it has maximum leverage. That point is not now, but next year, when the next Governor – whoever it is – will have to pass a tax and spending package to deal with Maryland’s long-term budget deficits. Such a package cannot pass without MoCo’s votes.

Um.....what?

That point is not now, but next year, when the next Governor – whoever it is – will have to pass a tax and spending package to deal with Maryland’s long-term budget deficits.

There is only one problem with Pagnucco's broadbrushed statement.

It's not true.

What is the main reason why Pagnucco's statement bunk? It has nothing to do with the fact that Governor Ehrlich (who, by the way, will be Governor again next year) opposes the broad based tax and spending package that Pagnucco is suggesting. It has nothing to do with the fact that Governor O'Malley has presided over the least fiscally responsible administration in the history of the state, or the fact that O'Malley has engineered a series of immoral and irresponsiblie tax increases that has crippled our state financially.

It's the fact that, as many liberals continue to do, Pagnucco relies on the failed notion of taxes and spending being the solution to deal with our budget problems. People failed to realize that the time for Kenyes still passed.

What's more absurd is the fact that Pagnucco's premise continues to go with the theory that only through higher taxes and increased state spending. Hello? Isn't that the kind of policy on which Governor O'Malley's administration has be predicated upon? All O'Malley has done during his time as Governor is raise taxes, raise spending, and fail to take respoonsible steps to protect the fiscal health of this state.

Liberals like Pagnucco just don't get it. There is another way. Whomever is Governor in 2011 should take broad steps to reduce state spending and lower our taxes. Taxes at the very least should be returned to pre-O'Malley levels, in an effort to the middle and working class families that Maryland Democrats seem hellbent on destroying. Our spending plan should be rebuilt from the ground-up to ensure that only legitimate priorities and not Democratic special interests are receiving the bulk of our funding. And the Governor, whomever it is, should take broad steps to begin reducing the size of our state government. Maryland's government has for far too long been too big for its britches; we need a smaller, mor efficient government that only provides necessary services to the people of Maryland.

Maryland's middle and working class families, the ones who have been so hurt by Martin O'Malley's recklessness, knows that higher taxes are not the answer. If liberal opinion makers such as Pagnucco don't come to grips with the fact that there is an alternative to higher taxes and more spending....the people of Maryland will leave them in the dust.

Thoughts on Urban Public Schools

2010-03-16T16:31:00.000-04:00

Reason.tv is doing a multi-part series on Saving Cleveland. And while the piece below may be about fixing education in Cleveland, it sounds like a lot of ideas that we could be using to save schools in Baltimore.

Governor O'Malley likes to tout the numbers that claim Maryland has "the best public schools in the nation." But if you take a look at the performance of students in Baltimore City Public Schools, the success rate isn't there; particularly when it comes to college attendance and providing legitimate opportunities for students to improve their socioeconomic situation. We owe more to our kids than that, and these are just some of the ideas and issues that we face in trying to provide legitimate opportunities for Maryland's public school students.

Starve the Beast

2010-03-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

Well it looks like the poster-child for failed state agencies doesn't have enough money to keep things going into the next fiscal year:

The Maryland Transit Administration may not have enough money for personnel and operations in next year's budget, legislative analysts warn, but state transit officials insist that they’ll make do with the funding the governor gave them.

Transportation Secretary Beverly Swaim-Staley told the Senate budget committee Thursday that fiscal 2011 will be challenging under Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed budget, but she vowed to make it work.

"We have to move things around in the budget, or look at the capital program to meet our needs,” she said.

Now we know that the Transit Administration is possibly the worst-run aspect of Maryland State Government, with a spate of problems throughout the years; failed equipment, unsafe transit lines, services that don't make any money. I have been calling for the senor leadership to be replaced for a long time at the least, and at most to see the entire system privatized so that it can be better managed.

What better way to prove the fiscally reckless manner in which the MTA is being run than the fact that the in the budget submitted for the Governor's approval the agency doesn't have enough money to keep things going.

And what is one reason that the agency is running out of money. Labor unions:

The Department of Legislative Services raised concerns in its analysis of the MTA’s proposed $468 million budget that projected costs of labor contracts could outpace the agency’s funding next year. The document pointed specifically to ongoing negotiations with transit unions.

“There is concern that the fiscal 2011 allowance for MTA is insufficient to support all of the contract increases for services and union personnel expenses in addition to the ongoing expenses of operating a large transit system,” the analysis said.

Here's a memo to MTA leadership; when negotiating these contracts, why not be reasonable? Why not negotiate within your means and try not to spend more than the Governor has allocated for you? Why? Because that's how we operate in the real world. If you are already projecting $468 million in shortfalls because of the contract that is currently under negotiation, you better come up with a plan that will offset that $468 million projection.

Which then leads to the issue of farebox recovery rates, in that the MTA's stated goal is a recovery rate of 35 percent; that means that the goal of the state is to recover only 35 cents of every dollar that it takes to operate the entire transit system.....and MTA right now is only getting a 30 percent recovery rate.

If the MTA were a private business, they would be hemorrhaging money and close their doors within a year with such rates. ...but here in Maryland, such business practices seem to be perfectly acceptable.

If I were in charge of the MTA, I would take steps to make the Agency profitable. There are ways to make the system self-sufficient without making the system unsafe or transit fares unaffordable to average riders. I'm not saying that the MTA needs to have a 150% farebox recovery rate like they do in Hong Kong (on a privatized system, incidentally), but I would make sure that steps were taken in order to move closer to ending the subsidization of of the system.

But I'm not. Instead, MTA senior leadership needs to do the competent thing and spend within their means. With a budget shortfall, there is no room in the budget to throw more good money after bad toward a failing transit administration. General Assembly leadership needs to resist the urge and make the MTA work with less; we need to starve the beast to create efficiencies and costs savings that will finally make the MTA take common sense approaches to improve service.

Overreaching

2010-03-05T09:51:00.001-05:00

There's no way around it: Delegate Don Dwyer is getting a raw deal from Legislative Leadership and the media on his threat to impeach Attorney General Doug Gansler.

What is getting lost in the hub-hub about the gay marriage issue is that Dwyer's call to impeach has nothing to do with the gay marriage issue. Nothing at all. Yes, Dwyer is one of the most vocal opponents of gay marriage in the entire state of Maryland. But even above all of that, Don values the Constitution and the Legal Process just as much. Gansler has, in fact, tried to obfuscate the roles of government by trying to circumvent the lawmaking process by trying to influence the courts and influencing changes in state law without the will of the General Assembly. In Dwyer's words, Gansler's actions "show a clear disregard for Maryland and the legislative process by which it is enacted."

Face it; Gansler's opinion on the matter is substantially overreaching of the authority of his office.

Gansler's reaction to Dwyer's attempts at impeachment were also curious in and of itself. The fact that Gansler's office put out an opinion saying Gansler cannot be impeached seems to be a bit of political jujitsu to defend the flank, a political maneuver whose technical term is "CYA." The fact that Gansler's office felt it necessary to put out an opinion you can deduce on your own, but when you consider the shaky precedent that Gansler's built his case upon (on top of all of the other constitutional issues) and the fact that Gansler is running his office based on the judicial activist tradition without actually being a judge and you realize that there is some there there where Gansler could legitimately face the music.

Doug Gansler is clearly in the wrong here. I may be a minority in supporting the idea of gay marriage, but Delegate Dwyer is right to pursue this as he sees fit. I certainly don't think that Gansler will be impeached or removed from office, but sometimes the point of accountability has to be made.....

....but it's a point that doesn't have to be made. If Legislative Leadership would just let the issue of gay marriage come to a vote once and for all, this issue would disappear. The General Assembly cannot duck this issue forever. We all know why Maryland's Democrats don't want this to come to a vote; because it is political inexpedient for them to do so. The basically have the Hobson's Choice of ticking off half of their base, no matter how the vote turns out. The moral we should really take away from the Gansler's marriage opinion is the fact tat Legislative Leadership needs to show the moral turpitude to bring the issue to a vote once and for all....

Driving the Point Home

2010-03-01T20:47:00.000-05:00

My guest column regarding an elected school board in Saturday's Gazette was not necessarily based on this topic, but the story in today's Capital regarding the partisan composition of the Anne Arundel County School Board does reinforce the point:

Anne Arundel County may run red during elections, but its school board has turned almost completely blue.

Just one Republican remains on the Board of Education; the other seven adult members are all registered Democrats. Even the student board member, who's too young to register and hasn't picked a party, said she supported President Barack Obama in 2008.
Against the rest of the county, which generally votes conservatively, that Democratic majority is a mismatch. Voters have chosen a Republican county executive and Republicans for four out of seven seats on the County Council, and in 2008 they voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

My support of an elected School Board has little to do with party affiliation and more to do with the fact that the current members of the Board are not held accountable for their actions. But as the story notes, the current make up of the Anne Arundel County School Board does not reflect the political culture or the will of the people of Anne Arundel County.

Surely, nobody in their right mind thinks that education is inherently partisan. However, when you consider the issues related to the teachers union and the fact that half of the county budget is spent on education you begin to realize that there is a serious problem with the way that we select our School Board. That's a point that State Senator Bryan Simonaire notes:

The change was supposed to make the process more democratic, but observers such as
Sen. Bryan Simonaire, R-Pasadena, note the governor gets to appoint five of the 11 commissioners, giving him more control than appears at first blush.
"There's a lot of smoke screens, but when you get down to the bottom and realize who's appointing these appointees, it's a political process," said Simonaire, who has advocated for the county to have an elected school board. "It's not fair when … one party dominates the board."

To that end Senator Simonaire, along with Delegates McConkey, Costa, Dwyer, George, King, Kipke, and Schuh, are sponsoring SB765/HB1083, a bill that would retain the current appointment process, but allow for other candidates to participate in a nonpartisan election much in the same way that Circuit Court nominees can be challenged. This would alleviate a lot of the qualms that people have with the School Board selection process as (finally) people would have the ability to have a real, legitimate choice in electing their School Board members.

In issues such as education, the will of the parents, teachers, and taxpayers need to be heard. And the current process is about as undemocratic as you can get. Hopefully, us folks here in Anne Arundel County will get a legitimate chance to elect our School Board members.

Talking School Board

2010-02-27T13:55:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out my column from today's Maryland Gazette discussing the need for an elected school board here in Anne Arundel County....something that I have talked about at length for a number of years now.

So....

2010-02-26T22:47:00.001-05:00

.....let's take a look at the last two people in political circles who have employed Judd Legum.

One was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who of course spent most of the 1990's engrossed in one scandal or another....or another....or another. Legum worked as the Research Director of her Presidential Campaign, and if you remember towards the end of the campaign it was supporters of Clinton's campaign that first gave worth to the asinine birther movement.

Next, Legum (as we noted) went to work for New York Governor David Paterson. Paterson, of course, admitted to having an affair with a subordinate while serving as Lt. Governor and ended his campaign for a full term today due to the fact that he is being investigated for accusations that he abused his power to protect an aide accused of assaulting a woman last October.

So if you take a look at the scorecard, the last two political candidate employers of Judd Legum are two people who embody the picture of Democrats constant embroiled in scandal. With the people Legum works for, I think we really need to be questioning the fitness of his judgment and his fitness for office. Legum has shown to be a bad judge of character considering these (and others) he has decided to associate himself with.

Sadly.....it also makes me wonder what skeletons are in Judd Legum's attic.

Being Generally Unhelpful

2010-02-25T22:42:00.000-05:00

From the file of ways to neither win friends nor influence people comes tonight's story out of Howard County.

The Howard County Republican Club is a reasonably large group of Republicans in Howard County that has a large and extensive contact list. Apparently, that was an inviting target for club member John Wafer, who is also a member of the Howard County Republican Central Committee. Wafer, claiming to act on behalf of the entire committee, made a motion at tonight's meeting to compel the Club to hand over their entire contact list over to the Central Committee, claiming that this was "routine" and that "it happens all the time." Club members, being of sound mind, rejected the motion nearly unanimously.

There are a number of related problems that are here:

If a Republican Club within the county has a larger and more useful contact list than the County Central Committee, then one of these groups has fallen asleep at the switch; and,
If a Republican Central Committee member feels like the Committee is entitled (for lack of a better term) to access to a club's mailing list, it would seem that the aforementioned Central Committee member seems to think they are more important than they really are.

And nowhere that I am aware of "routinely" sees clubs turnover their lists to Central Committees. When I was President of the Anne Arundel YR's, I was never even asked to turn over the list. We information flowed down, we got it out without making a big to-do about it.

Obviously this appears to be an isolated incident, but I hope that all Republican Central Committee members take heed from this. We do not need Central Committee members to stoke ill will with committed, organized Republican Clubs, least of all in an election year. These Central Committee members need to "do no harm" as it were, and avoid taking actions that are generally unhelpful at best or, in this case, generally knuckleheaded.

Playing the Hand Your Dealt

2010-02-24T20:09:00.002-05:00

I don't often disagree with Streiff's assessment of local politics, but I don't think his assessment of yesterday's budget hearings does the Republican Caucus justice in this regard.

As soon as President Miller and Speaker Busch called for public hearings and a public airing of Republican ideas; the caucuses were faced with a Hobson's Choice:

Show up; or,
Not show up.

Of course, there were consequences to the Caucus picking either choice:

Show up, and you get the opportunity to air your grievances publicly, in front of citizens and the media. You get the opportunity to show the people and legislative leadership that there are, in fact, real alternatives to the failure of Martin O'Malley and the Democrats to lead on this issue; or,
Don't show up, and then the story becomes Republicans not wanting to present their ideas on fixing the budget.

Tony O'Donnell, Chris Shank, David Brinkley, EJ Pipkin, Steve Schuh and other Republicans down in Annapolis did the best they could with the hand that they were dealt; in fact, I think that Republican leadership, in actuality, called the bluff of the Democrats. I am not sure that Speaker Busch thought the Republicans had real budget solutions to offer (never mind all of the amendments that O'Donnell, Lowell Stoltzfus, and others have offered over the years).

The fact that Republicans participated in the budget hearing was the best of all possible solutions, particularly when you consider the media hellstorm that would have followed had the Republican caucus balked.

That leads into a different problem; everybody and their brother knew that the Republican budget ideas were not going to get a fair shake in the media. Which leads me to wonder where the hell the Maryland Republican Party has been on this issue. What messages, emails, and talking points have gone out to aggressively push the Republican side of the story?

Frankly, there are two points that need to be said about the State Party media operation;

One, it seems to comprise short, pithy, not particularly aggressive our meaningful press releases; and,
Two, it seems to me that we here at Red Maryland seem to have a more aggressive and organized media operation than the State Party does.

Republican legislators in Annapolis did what they had to do yesterday; they played the hand that they were dealt.

Now, we have to do our part to grow their numbers this fall....

Judd Legum's Philosophy of Governance

2010-02-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

Judd Legum, the out-of-state funded Democrat for Delegate in District 30, also has a side gig in addition to be a candidate and a trial lawyer as the Chairman of the Market House and City Dock Committee of Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen's transition team. And buried deep in this Capital story about the failure of the Market House rehabilitation project to get on track are Legum's thoughts about how Market House should operate:

The committee recommended the formation of a commission to determine exactly who will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Market House and what businesses will move into it. It's more important to reflect the character of Annapolis than for the property to turn a profit, Legum said.

Emphasis mine.

So, just to be clear, Judd Legum has absolutely no problem whatsoever with Annapolis City Taxpayers operating an ostensibly for-profit enterprise that competes with local private businesses for customers and revenues operating at a loss. That of course would mean that city taxpayers could see themselves footing the bill for more of Market House's operating costs than would be legitimately necessary; a philosophy that has already failed at the state level.

In Judd Legum's world, soaking the taxpayers for the ineffectiveness of government is a perfectly legitimate position to take. We need to make sure that Judd Legum doesn't bring his backward philosophy of governance to the State House next year...

James King and the Californiazation of Maryland

2010-02-09T22:48:00.002-05:00

Delegate James King has finally decided to stand for something (other than giving Martin O'Malley political cover) and he has picked term limits as his hill to die on for this legislative session, being the sole sponsor of HB660 which would prohibit members of the General Assembly, the Comptroller, the Attorney General, or the State Treasurer from serving more than two consecutive terms.

Why James King decided now was the time to actually try to play the role of a conservative is kind of baffling (unless you think his crowded District 33A re-election primary or a potential Senate challenge to Ed Reilly is a concern) but King has decided to happen upon the one issue that would turn effective control of the machinations of state over to......lobbyists and staffers.

One of the biggest criticisms of term limits is the complete lack of institutional memory that remains once the limits are in place. Legislative and Committee leadership are being overturned pretty much with every successive election that takes place. With that, that experience (for whatever its worth) is turned over. That leaves the most knowledgeable people when it comes to issues and legislative dynamics being those people who are unelected and not subject to term limits in the first place; the lobbyists and the staffers.

To see where the idea of term limits can get you, take a look at the fiscal situation in California. While it's true that King's constitutional amendment is not nearly as draconian as California's law, there are a number of pretty obvious impact these limits have brought the state:

Legislative leadership turns over at a rapid rate;
Staff members are increasingly valuable to newly elected legislators, since they know how the place really works.
Lobbyists are one of the most knowledgeable sources of information for newly elected legislator on particularly issues, legislative dynamics, etc.
Most legislators who know that when they are termed out of office that there are no practical political repercussions for any zany and off-the-wall ideas they want to introduce; and,
Those legislators who aren't trying to go home are career politician wannabes who are trying to move up the food chain to the next office.

So when you combined the elements of legislative turnover, entrenched staffers and lobbyists, and ambitious folks mixed with people not required to face the music, you get a state that is billions in debt, has an oppressive tax rate and business climate, and is losing people and companies to neighboring states in droves. Basically, Maryland on steroids.

And besides, we already have term-limits; they're called elections. The antidote to the same schmucks getting elected over and over again is citizen involvement.

Hey, we all think that our "citizen-legislators" should be more emphasis on the citizen and less on the legislator. And we all know that we can do better than the entrenched legislators that we have in Annapolis, some of whom have been there since the 1960's. But King's idea is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. And it isn't like the Amendment is going to be passed by the General Assembly any time soon.

If King wanted to put more emphasis on trying to create positive change in Annapolis and a little less emphasis on trying to put on conservative airs in an election year, he would reach across the aisle and work with Baltimore Democrats to change the legislative apportionment process to create single member districts in the House and a nonpartisan redistricting commission. That idea, which would have a lot of legs on both sides of the aisle, would bring about a much more positive change (and actually have a chance of going somewhere) and would be of greater benefit to the people of Maryland than this dog and pony show...

Maryland Dems soiling themselves with prospect of Ehrlich Running

2010-02-09T09:15:00.000-05:00

In a nice moment of synergy, Center Maryland's centrist facade meets scare(d) tactics with this morning's advice that Bob Ehrlich should wait to run for Governor until 2014.

I'm not going to bother quoting the article, but I think the message is pretty clear: DEMOCRATS ARE TERRIFIED O'MALLEY IS GOING TO LOSE.

They may want to grab some clean underwear, too.....

The Brian Griffiths Minute: 02-08-2010

2010-02-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

Keep one eye on New York

2010-02-05T20:59:00.000-05:00

Looks like the New York Times is readying a scandalous story centered on New York Governor David Paterson that will likely be published any day now.

Why does this matter to Maryland. If you remember, the Paterson campaigned hired one Judd Legum to do their dirty work for them.

It will be interesting to see what scandals Paterson has gotten himself in. Then the question becomes this: what did Legum know, and when did he know it. We already know about Legum's lack of guts. But if Legum knew Paterson was up to no good and took his money anyway, it will speak volumes towards his character....

Bill Frick Beclowns Himself Again

2010-02-05T13:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I wrote about Bill Frick's tweet lamenting his job. Well, sometime between 8:54 PM and now, Frick deleted the Tweet.

Thankfully, we have saved it for posterity so you can see it.

You can run, but you can't hide, Delegate Frick.....

The Selfbeclowning of Bill Frick

2010-02-04T20:54:00.000-05:00

Delegate Bill Frick may have become the first Delegate to selfbeclown himself in 140 characters or less. Check out this tweet from Frick:

In a tax bill hearing. Lectured at by a 22 year old from Americans 4 Prosperity about freedom and how business works. This is my life.

Apparently, Delegate Frick isn't a fan of, you know, public participation in the Legislative Process. Apparently it is a tremendous strain on Frick's life to listen to testimony from somebody who probably understands more than Frick how free markets work and how to pull Maryland out of our economic doldrums. Then again if you read into his condascending tone, I suppose Bill Frick doesn't think 22-year olds should participate in the political process except to be quiet and knock on doors.

Of course, Delegate Frick, if your life is so difficult and you are so inconvenienced by public testimony, you could always hit the bricks, go back to Montgomery County, and let one of the thousands of unemployed Marylanders take your $43,500 a year seat in your place...

MTA stands for "Most Troubled Agency"

2010-02-03T20:37:00.000-05:00

You know that sometimes, I get letters. And sometimes I get them about the Maryland Transit Administration, which as you know if you've been paying attention, is in dire need of a clean slate and fresh leadership from somebody who has not been part of the circus and has at least a smidge of common sense.

So needless to say that the following email message I got was....disturbing:

A guy I work with has a neighbor who does maintenance and repairs of the MTA buses in Baltimore City. Last week, a call came in from a driver, and she wanted to bring her bus in because "someone had taken a crap in the bus."

She brought the bus in, and, unbeknownst to her, this guy reviewed the tape from the bus. Well, as you probably guessed by now, they have footage of her emptying her bus, going Out of Service, pulling off somewhere, and taking a crap in the middle of the bus. The best part of it was this: she was on the phone calling it in as she was taking the dump.

So, the mechanic followed up with HR (or whatever the heck they have) and, because she is union, she was not fired... only reprimanded for her behavior.

Wow. Just wow. Is it any wonder why Light Rail, Metro, and MTA Buses fail to meet ridership expectations? I mean, how can riders expect a clean and safe mode of transit when even MTA employees can't meet basic standards of human civility?

So that leads me to ask the same questions I usually have when this issues come up:

Why do Senior Leaders at the Maryland Transit Administration continue to have jobs;
Why does Governor O'Malley take no responsible for MTA and its mismanagement?

If transit advocates really want to help increase ridership in the Baltimore area, they should join me in calling for new leadership and new realities over at MTA Headquarters. The current crew cannot change make the necessary changes to provide safe, reliable and clean transit.
For positive change, outside leadership is necessary.

A Prebuttal

2010-02-01T04:44:00.000-05:00

A prebuttal to Governor O'Malley's State of the State Address:

The Continuing Saga of Derek Fink

2010-01-31T19:56:00.000-05:00

Derek Fink's stock seems to be falling faster than Barack Obama's as more discussion goes on regarding his business arrangements with Cookie Kiser.

Below is an image of a letter that is circulating regarding Fink's conduct in the matter, and it does not paint a very pleasant picture of Fink's conduct during this matter.

Bottom line is that Derek Fink does not at all seem like he is on the up and up.....

The Brian Griffiths Minute: 01-30-2010

2010-01-30T16:13:00.000-05:00

PS: This is comedy folks. A serious point being made in an unserious way. If you are offended by this......ligthen up.

Where there is Smoke....

2010-01-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

If you remember the Derek Fink story from earlier this month, you can conclusively say that there is trouble in paradise for Fink. Just check out the Facebook fan page for Cookie's Kitchen restaurant:

In an attempt to create clarity Cookie Kiser owner of Cookies Kitchen, Cookies City Line Diner & Cookies Bay Meadow Grill would like to make the following announcement: She no longer has any affiliation personally, professionally or politically with DEREK FINK.

I think that settles one aspect of this story. But I can't wait until we really get to the bottom of this one....

Sunshine and Open Government

2010-01-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

Again pointing out as I did last month about how certain issues bring the left and the right together, Adam Pagnucco discusses one of the issues on which we agree and how Delegate Heather Mizeur from Montgomery County is leading the push for the Open Government Act which will make public access to the up-to-minute bill tracking service, post agendas online in advance, allow hearings of Committees and the Board of Public Works to be broadcast over the internet, and other good government ideas.

You know, bringing the General Assembly into the 21st Century.

As I stated before, open government is better government no matter what side of the aisle you're on. And as before, I encourage all Republicans, including all members of Republican House and Senate Caucuses who have not already pledged their to support, to support such this legislation and help bring the business of Maryland out into the open.

Judd Legum is Gutless, and other facts of life

2010-01-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be straight about it: Judd Legum (D-Soros) has no balls.

Word on the street was that Judd Legum was mad about my post detailing the truth behind his campaign cash haul last week. So instead of manning up and saying so himself on his own blog, his own website, or his own Twitter feed like any normal person would, Legum decided to put the "yellow" in "Yellow-Dog Democrat" and recruited a flunky, Anne Arundel County Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Thibodeau, to do it for him four days after the fact with a post up on Maryland Politics Watch.

Yeah, it's real scintillating stuff too, made more impressive by the fact that Thibodeau in his pathetic defense of the feckless Legum concedes virtually every major point that I was trying to make about Legum being a product of out of state Democratic interests.

The one point that Thibodeau really really wanted to pounce on was this:

Well, it’s only beyond comprehension if one doesn’t realize that the Thayaparans are part of Legum’s family. His in-laws, to be precise. Had Griffiths bothered to do a simple Google search of “Judd Legum Thayaparan”, he would have found several references to Judd Legum and Roshini Thayaparan. Roshini is Judd’s wife. So either Griffiths didn’t bother to check something basic – that the donations in questions were from his family – or Griffiths did in fact know and thought it would make great copy to insinuate something shady was going on. Either way, bad form, Brian.

Apparently, Stephen Thibodeau has a magic Google which some connects the word wife and/or marriage to the two names. Because I searched the names four days ago. I searched them again today. And, of course, there is no connection to the casual observer. I would refer you to the extensive biography of Legum located on Legum's campaign webiste....except one doesn't exist on Legum's website.

So, to summarize Thibodeau's main points:

Raising money from out of state is OK if it's family.
Dancing around the fact that a number of small contributions came from a small number of people donating multiple times is OK.
Rasing 71.2% of your campaign funds for a local race is OK.
Don't look at us, look at Ron George!

I guess we now know why Anne Arundel County has a Republican Majority....

(And as an aside; during this filing period, Delegate Ron George had four donations made from out of state. Four. That means that 98.5% of Ron George's total donations and 98.3% of all dollars raisedwere from Maryland donors)

Again, I point out that Thibodeau concedes every major point that I made. And to boot, he refuses to deny that Legum's campaign, while not taking money from state PACs and lobbyists, is raking in big money from Washington-based, federal lobbyists who are part of the Clinton machine.

The funniest thing about this however, is the fact that poor old Judd Legum is angry because somebody dared to question. And let's not forget here, that Legum is a product of the hypercompetitive political environment from the Clinton Campaign Machine. Apparently, Judd Legum can dish out the heat, but he can't take it when the spotlight is foisted upon himself.

I like to think of it as a football fan who wants to criticize the decision making of the team's quarterback; sure it looks easy when you're watching it on TV. But I can tell you from stepping is as a quarterback for my social league touch football team that it's a whole different animal when it's you scrambling around in the pocket.

And to top it all off, Judd Legum didn't even have the intestinal fortitude to respond himself. He had to find somebody else to do his heavy lifting for him. So, so sad.

Here's some advice Judd; if you want to represent the people of District 30, you're going to have to make the tough decisions on your own. You can't get other people to fight your battles for you in those time when you curl up in the fetal position, suck your thumb, and act like a lily-livered coward. If you don't grow a spine, you're just going to make more of an joke out of yourself than you already have.....

Next time you need to say something....say it yourself.

Deschenaux questions O'Malley Budget

2010-01-25T21:49:00.000-05:00

Last week I called Martin O'Malley's budget irresponsible budgeting. Warren Deschenaux, the General Assembly's Chief Budget analyst, seems to agree:

Maryland lawmakers should consider a Plan B in case the roughly $389 million in federal stimulus funds Gov. Martin O'Malley is counting on to balance the state's budget doesn't materialize, the General Assembly's top budget analyst said Monday.

"Some have questioned whether that money is reliably in the bank," Warren G. Deschenaux said at a hearing. "I would say that is not a certainty. The question then is: What to do about it?"

Deschenaux also warned that the roughly $442 million in cash infusions from previously untouchable parts of the budget that O'Malley uses to help close the revenue hole "amounts to an erosion of accounting standards." But he stopped short of ruling the transfers out-of-bounds, saying they had been used during past downturns to keep services going.

"We've been doing this for a long time," he said. "There is very little that is actually new in terms of the thinking underlying the 'found money' aspect of this budget."

"An erosion of accounting standards." Seems like a synonym for irresponsible budgeting for me.

The question, of course, is what the General Assembly is going to be with Deschenaux's assessment, particularly in regards to the $389 million in Monopoly money that O'Malley invented in order to cover this budget shortfall. When the General Assembly's own policy analysts are telling them that a budget seems to be relying on gimmicks, smoke, and mirrors it (should) be incumbent upon them to make appropriate cuts in order to pass a responsible budget.

But I'm not holding my breath...

Why Not Monorail?

2010-01-23T22:37:00.000-05:00

There was much consternation when the recommendations came out last year for the construction of the Baltimore Red Line. The line of course would be new 14-mile light rail line being constructed from Woodlawn across the city all of the way to the Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus. The main portion of the line that drew the most opposition was the proposed surfacing of the Red Line on Boston Street in Canton, starting with the American Can Company building. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why this is such a problem; the plan would put two surface lines on a heavily trafficked entryway into the city. Many large trucks that go into Fells Point, Harbor East, and downtown have to use Boston Street as their entryway into the city, for example. And that says nothing of the disruptive effects on the Canton and Highlandtown communities from the surface line, leading to efforts to oppose the Red Line in those communities.

But the Red Line plan has other problems associated with it as well. Even the concept of tunneling major sections of the line will cause a number of disruptions at an enormous cost to taxpayers.

And that leads me to ask one simple question; why not build the Red Line using Monorail?

Monorail tends to be thought of as a more exotic method of transportation that is associated with tourism moreso than transportation. Many people are familiar with the Monorail at Disney World or the one in Seattle that are short lines that do not serve a public transit purpose. Monorail is being used, however, in places such as Las Vegas to provide a relatively short public transit capability for these areas.

But would Monorail have be a practical solution for the Red Line? Perhaps. Using Monorail would not require neither expensive tunneling, nor would it require disruption of traffic on city streets. The idea of an elevated monorail that is elevated above the streets would be no worse of an eyesore than tracks going down the center of the street, and would certainly be less of an eyesore than the elevated Metrorail tracks in Owings Mills. Nor would the creation of a monorail system create delays at at-grade intersections. Intermodal connections between the existing "Blue Line" (Cromwell-Timonium Light Rail) , "Green Line" (Baltimore Metro), bus lines and MARC Trains would be no more onerous and inconvenient than the current Red Line proposal,

Is Monorail a cost-effective alternative? Perhaps, particularly when you consider that the cost of building a monorail system is would be anywhere between $14 million and $93 million a mile depending on the system, and the Red Line project as currently envisioned will cost roughly $114 million a mile. Monorail systems (believe it or not) can also be leased from the providing companies as a more cost effective way of implementing the system. The state could also (as part of my quest for privatization) consider leasing the operating rights for a monorail system to a private vendor, requiring that the Vendor construct and then operate the system at particular price.

Is Monorail the silver bullet to solving problems with the Red Line? Probably not. There are trade-offs as well as benefits to the construction of any of these public transit projects. But certainly, we owe it to ourselves as taxpayers to ask state leaders to consider all alternatives to the current Red Line project. The prohibitive costs and the disruption to communities and traffic flow (particularly in Canton) demand the consideration of alternatives that alleviate these concerns.

Channeling Me

2010-01-22T18:45:00.000-05:00

What a wonderful idea!

Maryland should consider legalizing "true casinos" that could include table games like blackjack and craps instead of just slot machines, a member of the state's Video Lottery Facility Location Commission said Friday.

D. Bruce Poole, an attorney from Washington County and former member of the House of Delegates, suggested the idea during a meeting of the panel. To legalize table games like blackjack or craps in Maryland, the state's voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment.

Poole cited not only the state's current fiscal problems due to the recession, but also Maryland's large structural deficit, in which the state is regularly spending more money than it receives in revenues, as reasons why the state should think bigger about expanded gambling.

"We need to talk about how to get ahead of the curve ... because we have a dire need for revenue," Poole said at a commission meeting convened to suggest potential changes to the state's slot machine law.

Poole also noted that neighboring states already have approved table games or have started moving in that direction.

"The other competitors are simply outstripping us," Poole said. "They're ahead of us."

West Virginia already has approved table games.

Poole also said table games are likely to attract wealthier clientele to Maryland facilities, where they could spend money not only on gambling but also on hotels and restaurants.

"I don't want to see the poor milked, but I wouldn't mind milking the wealthy," Poole said.

Why didn't somebody think of this before.....oh that's right. I've been championing the idea of table gaming for years because of the obvious fact that slots would not work to solve the budget problems that they were allegedly going to fix. I'm glad somebody has finally started to listen, even though the legalization of table games will take another constitutional amendment adopted by the voters of the state of Maryland due to the fiasco involved with adopting the slots amendment.

Now, maybe we can stop pretending slots are the solution to our budget woes, and take proactive steps to add gambling options that will actually produce revenue for the state...

The Truth behind Judd Legum's Fundraising

2010-01-21T21:48:00.002-05:00

Liberal darling/mudslinger/trial lawyer/factually challenged blogger Judd Legum is telling anybody who will listen that he raised over $65,000 for his campaign for the House of Delegates in District 30. It's on his blog. There was a press release. It was tweeted. It's all over the place like he won an award or something.

Of course, what do the numbers actually mean....

For starters, let's take a look at this claim from Legum:

I was extremely pleased with all the early financial support to my campaign. Eighty-five percent of contributions were $100 or less and we didn’t accept a penny from special interest PACs.

Which of course depends on your definition of contribution. When you talk about the actual number of contributors, then yes of Legum's 538 total contributors, 459 of them made donations of $100.00 or less. That was a total amount, however, of $22,644.32. Of Legum's total dollars raised during the 2009 filing period, only barely one-third (34.6 percent) were raised from these "small" donors.

Except that's not really the case either. For example, an Emily Legum of Annapolis made seven different $50 contributions during the period, for an aggregate total of $350. Debbie Berger Fox of Washington, DC made two seperate $100 contributions. David Cho of New York City made 8 seperate contributions that total $220.47 in addition to a contribution of $250. Nancy Coley of Annapolis made three contributions under the $100 "limit" that aggregated $175. JoAnn Escobosa of Arnold made three $50 contributions. And it goes on like this. So while the number of "contributions" of less than $100 is accurate, the aggregated total comes from a smaller pool than Legum's press release would imply.

And speaking of contributions, where did these contributions come from? Glad you asked:

Arizona: 3
California: 38
Colorado: 1
District of Columbia: 111
Florida: 4
Georgia: 4
Iowa: 1
Illinois: 7
Kansas: 1
Kentucky: 1
Louisiana: 2
Maine: 1
Maryland: 231
Massachusetts: 13
Michigan: 1
Minnesota: 2
Missouri: 2
New Jersey: 7
New York: 37
North Carolina: 1
Ohio: 4
Oregon: 3
Pennsylvania: 16
Rhode Island: 1
South Carolina: 3
Texas: 5
Virginia: 26
Vermont: 1
Washington: 9
West Virgnia: 1
Wisconsin: 1

So to try and make the point for you here, only 42.9% of Legum's contributors live in the state of Maryland. We're not even talking about his district. We're talking about the state of Maryland.

Which now leads the question of how much of Legum's money comes from Maryland and how much comes from out of state. Glad you asked, because of Legum's total amount raised only $18,908 comes from in state donors. That means that only 28.8 percent of Judd Legum's money has been donated by Marylanders. As a matter of fact a nearly equal amount of Legum's funds were raised from residents of the District of Columbia ($18,610).

And that leaves us with the question of the who is giving money to Judd Legum. Well, the list contains a who's who of federal lobbyists with ties to the Clintion Political Machine. You can corraborate the list here. Some of the "dignitaries" include:"

Disgraced former Annapolis Mayoral Nominee Zina Pierre, whose campaign appartus donated $250 to Legum as the scandal around her campaign exploded, and then gave a personal $100 donation in November.
Hillary Clinton apparatchik Howard Wolfson maxed out for a $4,000 donation.
Bill Clinton flunky John Podesta, the former White House Chief of Staff who was instrumental in the Marc Rich pardon scandal and now spends qualtiy time as a UFO-truther.
Patti Solis Doyle, another prominent Clintonista, donated $1,000.
Former MoveOn.org Director Tom Mattize was another $1,000 donor.
Former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe donated $1,000 a few months after blowing his chance to be Governor of Virginia. You may also remember Mr. McAuliffe from his starring role in the Global Crossing scandal.

And our final question leads me to this: why would any out of state resident donate $4,000 to a political hack running for state office. Wjat's in for them. Well, four individuals donated the maximum to Legum's campaign account, accounting for nearly one-quarter of his total amount raised. One of them is Wolfson, but the other three donors have an interesting, albeit out of state connection.

Dr. Rose Thayaparan practices Cytopathology and Anatomic & Clinical Pathologyst St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. Her husband, P.W. Tayaparan, also donated $4,000. He used to work at the META Group, an information technology consulting firm in Stamford, Conn that was purchased by the Gartner Group. The only other $4,000 was their daughter Beatrice Wilderman. Why these three individuals would invest $12,000 in a Maryland race is frankly beyond comprehension at this point.

Judd Legum will tell everybody he knows that he has raised $65,000. But elections such as this one cannot be bought. They certainly cannot be bought by funds rasied from out of state donors with no connection to District 30. Maryland Democrats should be ashamed of thesmelves for allowing a candidate with the ego the size of Legum to become the poster child for their fundraising excesses.....and Legum himself should be ashamed that Sam Arora who was lower on the total pole than Legum managed to outrasie him in Montgomery County.

The moral of the story is that Judd Legum is selling himself to the highest bidder, whether or not that bidder is even a resident of Maryland. I hope the people of District 30 truly understand what they are getting if they vote for them this November. They won't be getting a Delegate who is serving them; they will be getting a Delegate beholden to out of state financial interests and the Clinton political machine. That's something the residents of District 30 and the people of Maryland as a whole simply cannot afford...

O'Malley loses The Sun

2010-01-21T19:09:00.001-05:00

You have to know that the budgetary mess that Governor O'Malley has created for the people of Maryland is bad when even the Sun attacks his budgetary shenanigans, labeling his budget as one held together by "Chewing gum and bailing wire":

Governor O'Malley's spending plan would, if all goes according to plan, leave $274 million in the state's bank account at the end of fiscal 2011. That's good. It would also leave the rainy day fund alone, also a fine thing. After that, things go south -- and fast.

The Department of Budget and Management predicts that Maryland will be $1.5 billion in the hole in fiscal 2012, followed by shortfalls of $2.1 billion, $2.2 billion and $2.5 billion. Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. complained that his predecessor left him with $4 billion in out-year deficits, and Governor O'Malley complained that Mr. Ehrlich left him with $3 billion in shortfalls. But with this spending plan, Mr. O'Malley saddles himself or his successor with an $8.3 billion problem. The governor said putting together this budget plan was painful, but it's peanuts compared to what's coming in the future if something doesn't change.

The editorial goes on to point out, much like we did earlier, that the O'Malley budget plan is an irresponsible budget saddled with gimmicks instead of solutions:

The answer is that too many of the solutions he has employed are one-time tactics, not long-term fixes. For example, the governor saves $330 million in the fiscal 2011 budget by keeping most aid to local governments funded at the already-reduced level they are at now. But in subsequent years, that aid is expected to grow by 5.9 percent a year. He saves $78 million through continuations of employee furloughs, but that isn't a permanent solution either. He shifts money from special funds, like those dedicated to preserving open space, into the general fund and pays for those programs through the the state's capital budget, effectively borrowing money for them. Because they displace other capital projects, they won't increase the state's debt burden, but nonetheless, Maryland's debt service payments are expected to grow by hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.

Now in fairness, the Sun went on to attack Republicans by saying their criticism "rings a bit hollow, since they have offered few concrete ideas for reducing spending." Of course, there are tons of Republican ideas for cutting spending, none of which get a fair shake in the General Assembly. But the fact that a Sun editorial actually calls out O'Malley for his reckless spending and his inability to get our budgetary situation under control really should give the O'Malley Administration at least a bit of understanding about how far off the reservation that they have truly wandered....

When you look up irresponsible budgeting in the dictionary, you see a picture of Martin O'Malley playing his guitar

2010-01-19T23:24:00.001-05:00

Not to take away from the zeitgeist of Scott Brown's epic victory in Massachusetts tonight, but take a look at the latest budget shenanigans from the office of Martin O'Malley:

Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to rely on a billion dollars in one-time accounting maneuvers to help balance next year's $13 billion state operating budget, avoiding deep cuts to services in an election year.

The strategy drew immediate concern from critics, particularly Republicans, who say the Democratic governor is deferring tough decisions.

O'Malley presented a broad outline Tuesday of how he plans to fill a $2 billion gap between revenues and expenditures in the spending plan he is required to submit to the General Assembly today.

And what is going to take the brunt of the Governor's budget axe? Health care and state workers, naturally:

He proposes steep cuts to to hospitals, and wants to continue this year's plan which forced state workers to take up to 10 days off without pay. Counties would receive the same reduced amounts of local aid and highway money they got this year.

And sometimes we joke about politicians trying to play with imaginary money when using their budget protections, but Martin O'Malley is actually budgeting using imaginary money!

O'Malley is also banking on Congress approving a new package of emergency assistance to states grappling with the worst economic downturn since the Depression. The governor allocates $389 million he believes the state would receive from that program if it materializes.

What planet is Governor O'Malley living on? He wants to cut aid to hospitals, but talk about expanding health care. He wants to confiscate two weeks worth of pay from state workers, but continue to expand the state bureaucracy, all while trying to be a "jobs Governor" as he runs for re-election. Most laughably of all, he wants to stick it to unionized state workers by (let me say this again) confiscating their pay but expect that SEIU and AFSCME will gladly and cheerfully give their money and time to his re-election efforts this fall.

You know, we have talked about O'Malleynomics for a long, long time as Martin O'Malley has smoked and mirrored his way through the first three years of his administration. But just when you think his budgeting skills can't get any worse, they do. All while trying to use Monopoly money to make it all work.

The General Assembly needs to force Governor O'Malley to make the tough decisions when it comes to passing a budget. We cannot afford to continue this gimmicked budgeting, and we need real solutions to dealing with our budget woes. And those solutions cannot be created on the backs of Maryland State Workers: regardless of whether or not state government is too big, it is irresponsible to take money out of the pockets of these workers who are serving the state of Maryland.

The O'Malley Budget is just the latest in a round of budgeting decisions that eschew responsibility and take money directly out of the pockets of state workers who make up a sizable chunk of Maryland's middle and working class families. And I have a feeling that voters are getting tired of the O'Malley Charade...

One More for the Road

2010-01-19T18:41:00.000-05:00

Spoke again to Maryland U.S. Senate Candidate Eric Wargotz from Massachusetts, and the news sounds promising. Wargotz and Don Murphy door-knocked today in Barney Frank's district, and Wargotz said that a large chunk of voters in the heavily Democratic district said they were voting for Brown. Combine that with an expected turnout around 50%, and things are looking up.

Here's hoping Scott Brown can make the drive over to help Maryland Republicans later this year...

News from the Front

2010-01-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Just got off the phone with Maryland U.S. Senate Candidate Eric Wargotz who is on the ground in Massachusetts helping out the Scott Brown campaign in the final hours of tomorrow's crucial U.S. Senate Special Election.

Wargotz described the mood on the ground as an "excited quiet" due to the snowstorm that hit the Bay State today. Wargotz and his field director, noted former Delegate Don Murphy, traveled up to Massachusetts over the weekend.

“Nothing we can do that is more important than supporting Scott Brown," Wargotz said. A brown victory "helps the country, helps the party, and helps campaigns like mine across the nation.”

Wargotz and Murphy met with the campaign leadership at the campaign headquarters in Needham Heights, went door-to-door in support of the candidate, and attended an impromptu rally in Brown's hometown of Wratham, where over 1,000 supporters gathered and Brown promised to shake everyone's hand before he left the site of the rally.

“The Brown race is a game breaker; it changes races such as Wargotz vs. Mikulski in Maryland," Wargotz said.

“Massachusetts woke up with the health care bill, and the country has woken up to see how important the 41st vote is in the Senate.”

The Forgotten Point

2010-01-18T10:57:00.001-05:00

Adam Pagnucco over at Maryland Politics Watch has been jumping up and down screaming about a subsidy for a new Costco in Wheaton and how evil Costco really is.

There is one point that Pagnucco seems to forget is hat this evil corporatist plot to turn make all our base belong to Costco is being schemed by a company whose CEO, Chairman, and CFO are huge contributors to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for each.

So when you consider that you have a company run by Democrats coming to a county run as a monopoly by Democrats expecting favors from said Democrats.....why should we be surprised?

State needs to help roll film

2010-01-17T21:40:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to expand upon something that we discussed yesterday on the Ehrlichs Radio Show about Martin O'Malley's work to eliminate the film production tax credit.

For those of you who don't know, Governor Ehrlich worked with folks in Hollywood during his administration in an effort to procure more film business for the state of Maryland, and established a tax credit for the first $6 million that a production company spent to film television shows and movies here in the state. When you consider the number of productions that have filmed here in Maryland (from the good, to the bad, to the demented) providing more incentives for production companies to do business here in Maryland seems like a pretty good idea.

Except it didn't seem like a good idea to Martin O'Malley, who worked to axe the tax credit.....never mind the fact that the cost to the state, in the grand scheme of things, was relatively minuscule.

Why is a tax credit important? Because it provides one huge incentive for production companies to do business here in Maryland. And when you talk about mid-size to major studio productions, that business provides a sizable impact to the state. I'm not sure how many readers have been on a movie set, but I got the opportunity to be an extra in a terrible Winona Ryder film that was filmed at Camp Fretterd. And there were hundreds of people working on that film at any given time; even David Paulson managed to get a gig with the film. And those hundreds working on the film didn't even include all of the other ancillary business that was attracted by the film; food purchases, hardware purchases, port-a-potty rentals, etc.

And those benefits are even greater if the state can attract an episodic television show to the area. While movies only need to film roughly 90 minutes of footage one time, episodic television creates about 26 hours of programming for every season. That means long-term, stable economic development in the area a film is being shot on location; you can't tell me that city businesses in locations around Baltimore didn't feel a sizable economic uptick that was directly attributal to the production of Homicide or The Wire.

If Governor O'Malley suddenly now wants to become a jobs Governor, why did he work to eliminate a tax credit that created jobs? Skilled labor that works in the film industry cannot survive the reduction in jobs that are available due to the elimination of the tax credit, which hurts union film workers. And the reduction winds up hurting small businesses. A small business owner from Baltimore County who owns a local production company that works on documentaries called into the show yesterday and noted that the elimination of the tax credit hurts his labor pool and his bottom line since so much skilled talent has left to the state. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the small business owners who run the flower shops and the food stores and the port-a-potty companies that would be hired to work on these productions.

Maryland remains attractive as a location for film companies; our state needs to be doing more to attract these large productions and the jobs and economic impact that comes with them...

Listen In

2010-01-15T05:52:00.000-05:00

I will be a guest on the Kendel and Bob Ehrlich Show tomorrow morning at 9:30, along with State Senator E.J. Pipkin.

Don't forget to listen in at 1090 on the AM dial, or online at wbal.com.

This guy wants to represent you, too....

2010-01-14T03:33:00.000-05:00

Local trial lawyer/house candidate/mudslinger Judd Legum is still doing his trial lawyer bit as he campaigns for the House of Delegates. And let me tell you what, he takes on some odd cases for someone who wants to earn the public's trust:

The Odenton Volunteer Fire Company wrongly rented out its social hall for an event in which two people were shot and a third was hit by a car while fleeing the violence, a lawyer for the injured partygoers said in opening remarks Tuesday to an Anne Arundel County jury.

Judd Legum asked jurors to hold the fire company liable for his clients' injuries.

But Senior Assistant County Attorney Hamilton Tyler said that it was not the fire company's fault that the party organizer lied on her application and that a disgruntled partygoer shot two people....

....Legum said the county liquor board threatened to curb the license at the Odenton facility after other violence, including at an event in March 2005 in which Young applied under her maiden name to hold a party for a nonprofit that was really a for-profit party where a person was stabbed.

The fire company promised to rein in the parties, blackball anyone who lied on an application and have firefighters monitor the events, but that didn't happen, Legum said.

Tyler said the trial will show that Young lied on the application for the September 2005 party because she knew the fire company had changed its rental policy.

So let me get this straight; Judd Legum wants to hold the Odenton Volunteer Fire Department responsible for the misuse of their facility by somebody who committed fraud and decieved the fire company to obtain use of its facility, and he wants Anne Arundel County taxpayers to fork over $7 million in taxpayer dollars in restitution for something neither the county nor the taxpayers were liable for.

Is this really why we pay taxes? Is this really a good use of taxpayer dollars? Of course it isn't.

The fact of the matter is that the trial lawyer who wants Anne Arundel County resident to fork over $7 million for something that the lawyer himself knows that the county could not be responsible for also wants to represent the people of Anne Arundel County in the House of Delegates. Is this the kind of guy we want to be making decisions with our taxpayer dollars in the House of Delgates?

Judd Legum is very good and finding new and creative ways to beclown himself, and new and amazing ways to show that he is not fit to be a member of the House of Delegates...

The Consequences of Failure

2010-01-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

We at RedMaryland have taken, of course, a great interest in the appointment process for the vacancy in the House of Delegates in District 3B. And now we see what the consequences of Republicans failure to lead has been.

Governor O'Malley appointed Charles Jenkins to fill the vacancy. And as my friend a colleague Greg Kline noted, Jenkins is on the record as being against tax hikes and for tax increases.

Is it any wonder Governor O'Malley picked Jenkins to fill the vacancy?

And is it any wonder so many average Republicans have no faith in their local Republican Party apparatus?

These are the consequences of failure. Our party needs to pick up the pieces and learn from this mistake....

The Perils of Choosing One

2010-01-04T02:22:00.000-05:00

Life's tough when you're the chosen one in a local election. Take, for example, Derek Fink a Republican candidate for County Council in the 3rd District. One of the candidates running to succeed Current Councilman Ron Dillon, Fink has been anointed as the establishment candidate in the race, supported by many local elected officials and by movers and shakers within the area business community.

(Nobody can exactly say why Fink is the chosen one. His career experience is more as a political functionary than as the "restaurant owner" he would like to portray himself as. And I met the guy once, and he seemed relatively aloof and clueless, but that's a story for another time).

What is very interesting however is how every solitary mention of one of Fink's prominent initial backers has completely vanished from his campaign website.

Ruth "Cookie" Kiser is the owner of the famous Cookie's Kitchen restaurant and Pasadena. She has been a longtime instrumental and important figure in the Pasadena business community. She has also been a longtime supporter of Republican candidates and causes here in Anne Arundel County, a financial backer of the candidacies of Bob Ehrlich, Steve Schuh and (curiously) Democrat George Johnson.

Kiser also has played a significant role in Fink's ability to mount a credible campaign. She gave Fink the opportunity to run Cookies Bay Meadow Grille in the Baymeadow Industrial Park. She was Fink's campaign treasurer when he opened his campaign finance committee in 2008, and donated $1,000 to Fink's campaign. She's even listed in property records as co-owner of Fink's home. That's a pretty significant commitment Kiser made to Fink.

However, upon the relaunch of Fink's campaign website, every mention of Kiser on his site has been scrubbed. She has been replaced as Treasurer as of November 5th. Fink's website, which used to mention specifically his employment at the Grille, now says only that "Derek is a small business owner in the County."

What happened? Who knows for sure. There are a number of rumors that are swirling, none of which are substantiated enough to publish.

The reason I mention this story (other than the fact that I am a resident of the 3rd District) is to demonstrate once again the perils of the establishment closing ranks around a candidate without doing their homework. A number of elected Republicans have given Fink their full and unadulterated support in this primary and at the moment it seems that this closing of ranks was predicated more around the fact that Fink was embraced by the business community and Fink's service as Steve Schuh's campaign manager than it was by the idea that Fink is the best candidate to serve the people of the district.

We as Republicans need to make sure that we do our homework in our primary elections, and not let establishment endorsements be the only guide of the candidates we support with donations of time and money....

Judd Legum's New Line same as his old line...

2009-12-31T16:43:00.001-05:00

Judd Legum couldn't be bothered to discuss his the recent revelation of his new gig as a mudslinger for New York Governor David Paterson. But he has plenty of time to continue raising money for his campaign for House of Delegates in District 30.....and apparently plenty of time to again violate state campaign finance laws by not including the authority line for his campaign committee.

Obviously, Judd Legum doesn't take campaign finance laws seriously since this isn't his first breach of them. Nor does he seem to care that the penalty for violating such laws is disqualification from being a candidate for public office.

The irony of course is that Legum does not advertise his own fundraiser from his own campaign site or his Twitter account. It's almost like he has been going out of his way to hide his fundraisers from the public; it was only from a post by Paul Foer that I was even made aware of Legum's event. And it's not like his last fundraiser which was sponsored by lobbyists days after claiming his campaign would not accept contributions form...lobbyists.

Judd Legum and his hypocrisy are going to be the gift that keeps on giving in 2010....

The Year That Was 2009

2009-12-31T03:33:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's time for the 2009 Awards....and since this is the only "best of the decade" list I'm giving you, we'll deal just with 2009.

Last year's post is available here, the one from 2006 here, and the one from 2005 is available here.

Best Move of 2009: Sheila Dixon convicted

2008 Winner: John McCain picks Sarah Palin
2007 Winner: Peter Angelos hires Andy MacPhail
2006 Winner: Ravens trade for Steve McNair
2005 Winner: John Roberts Appointed as Chief Justice

I was as stunned as anybody that a Baltimore City jury actually convicted an elected official in the City of Baltimore. It was just amazingly stunning because, no matter how corrupt it seemed Sheila Dixon was, I always figured that somehow, some way she would beat the rap. Now we know that there are some legal wranglings regarding a boneheaded juror, but the fact of the matter remains that this jury proved that nobody, not even the Mayor, is above the law in Baltimore. I hope (but doubt) that some of these elected Democrats will get the message.

Honorable Mention: Jim Pelura resigns; Orioles acquire Kevin Milwood; Release of the Droid

Worst Move of 2009: Bracack Obama wins Nobel Prize
2008 "Winner": Federal Bailouts
2007 "Winner": General Assembly, Leopold impose School Board "reforms"
2006 "Winner": Harriet Miers appointed to Supreme Court
2005 "Winner": Rafael Palmeiro's testimony to Congress

There is nothing I can say here that hasn't already said, but let me tell you this; the fact that Barack Obama can win a Nobel Prize under the following conditions...

Being nominated eleven days into his administration
Two wars in the Middle East
On the date of the first interplanetary bombing run

...pretty much tells you how credible the Nobel committee is these days. Not that they didn't lose that awhile ago. But never has one man been so feted for having accomplished so little.....

Dishonorable Mention: Anne Arundel County Council approves Arundel Mills slots parlor; Justin Ready fired as MD GOP Executive Director; Martin O'Malley unable or unwilling to control state spending; Levi Johnston continues to get press coverage

Strangest Move of 2009: Congress moves on Health Care "reform" without checking their backyard
2008 Winner: Being Rod Blagojevich
2007 Winner: John Flynn keeps job as MD GOP Executive Director
2006 Winner: Don Dwyer's May and June
2005 Winner: Martin O'Malley thanks MD4BUSH

The funny party about health care reform is not the fact that President Obama and his cohorts in Congress supported government-run health care and tried to implement it; the left in this country has been pretty adamant about their support for socialized medicine for quite some time now. No, it really has more to do with the fact that the hubris and the arrogance of the Obama White House and the perceived omnipotence of Speaker Pelosi combined to create a perfect storm for Democrats; a situation from which there is no escape.

Had anybody in the Obama/Pelosi camp bothered to ask anybody in the House or Senate Democratic Caucuses, they might have realized how much trouble they were really in. Because if there is anything that we have learned through this process it's that:

Moderate Dems won't vote for health care if it funds abortion
Far Left Dems won't vote forth health care if it doesn't fund abortion
Some Senators won't vote for health care if there is a public option
Some Senators won't vote for health care if there isn't a public option
Some members of Congress won't vote for health care if it increases the debt
Nobody agrees on whether or not health care will increase or decreases the debt.

All in all, it should have been painfully obvious that the votes were not there for Obamacare. As a rational American, that's a good thing, however it is one of the more brazenly bizarre decisions, particularly when in all likelihood it is going to severely backfire for Congressional Democrats at the ballot box this November.

Honorable Mention: Zina Pierre blows her chance to be Mayor of Annapolis; Martin O'Malley plays concerts while incapable of controlling spending; Memphis signs Allen Iverson; Jim Rutledge drops out of, back into Senate race within a week;

Gal I Feel Bad For for 2009: Trudy McFall(D), former candidate Annapolis Mayor
2008 "Winner": Dean Barkley
2007 "Winner": Arthur Blank
2006 "Winner": Rick Neuheisel
2005 "Winner": Rick Neuheisel

How can I feel bad for a Democratic Candidate for Mayor of Annapolis who lost in the Primary? Probably because she, more than anybody else, got screwed by the Zina Pierre debacle. Clearly, an overwhelming majority of the Democrats voting in the Annapolis primary did not want Josh Cohen to be Mayor. However, when the irregularities of Pierre's background came to light, the establishment immediately rushed to Cohen's side. Never mind the fact that the majority of voters voted for an "outside the box" candidate who was not part of either the city or county Democratic establishment.

And I think head to head, McFall would have beaten Cohen. Hands down.

Honorable Mention: Doug Hoffman, Jenny Sanford

Best Run Campaign(Local Division): Chris Fox(I), Candidate for Mayor
2008 Winner: None
2007 Winner: Fred Paone for Alderman (R-Annapolis)
2006 Winner: Nic Kipke for Delegate (R-31)
2005 Winner: Jeff Holtzinger for Mayor (R-Frederick)

Chris Fox is probably the one local candidate statewide who exceeded expectations. Sure, he did not reach the same numbers that Gilbert Reneault received in the 2005 General Election when he also ran as an independent. But Renault was also running against a Republican's whose consultant-driven campaign barely had a pulse. Fox ran a real, sustained campaign. And yes, his presence may very well have put Josh Cohen in City Hall. But that's a story for a different time. The fact of the matter is that no local campaign had as much of an immediate impact as did Fox's campaign. It's hard to say whether or not this has any impact whatsoever in 2013, but the short-term effects are real and obvious.

Best Run Campaign(Statewide Division): Andy Harris for Congress (R-1)
2008 Winner: Donna Edwards for Congress (D-4)
2007 Winner: Donna Edwards for Congress (D-4)
2006 Winner: Michael Steele for US Senate (R)

Oh what a difference a year makes. For two years running, the Harris Campaign couldn't get out of it's own way. But in the past year, no campaign has better served itself in keeping their eyes on the prize and focusing on the work that needs to be done in order to prepare themselves for the next election. It's a pretty drastic turnaround, and positions Harris well to unseat Frank Kratovil in the 2010 General Election (with the caveat, of course, that there is still a chance of a competitive primary in this seat...)

Honorable Mention: Eric Wargotz for U.S. Senate (R)

Best Run Campaign(National Division): Doug Hoffman for Congress (C-NY)
2008 Winner: Barack Obama for President (D-IL)
2007 Winner: Bobby Jindal for Governor(R-LA)
2006 Winner: Barack Obama for President (D-IL)
2005 Winner: Paul Hackett for Congress (D-OH)

Doug Hoffman found himself in an unusual position. Since New York allows "fusion" candidates who run under more than one party banner, Hoffman found himself for the special election in the 23rd District handed the nomination of the New York Conservative Party, but denied the nomination in his own Republican Party. Hoffman managed to take that defeat and turn it into a positive, corralling national support from many Republicans and conservatives across the county, and nearly defeating Democrat Bill Owens in the General Election. Sure, Hoffman's loss led to the election of a Democrat, but there were two fundamental items of importance that came out of this race; the fact that conservatives remain an important force in our body politic, and that the most liberal candidate in the race (the Republican Dede Scozzafava) didn't win...

Honorable Mention: Chris Christie for Governor (R-NJ), Bob McDonnell for Governor (R-VA)

Worst Run Campaign(Local Division): Dave Cordle for Mayor (R-Annapolis)
2008 "Winner": None
2007 "Winner": Kieffer Mitchell for Mayor (D-Baltimore)
2006 "Winner": Don Dwyer re-election campaign (R-31)
2005 "Winner": George Kelley for Mayor (R-Annapolis)

I hate to pick on a good guy who had good people running his campaign, and I hate to give this award to a second straight Republican nominee for Mayor of Annapolis. But the fact of the matter is that the Cordle Campaign barely registered prior to the Primary Election. Instead of aggressively meeting and engaging voters all summer, the campaign waited. A frustrating way to see a campaign be run, particularly with a good candidate who should have won the election had the strategy not be to sit and wait to see who the Democrats nominated...

Honorable Mention: None

Worst Run Campaign(Statewide Division): Gov. Martin O'Malley re-election campaign (D)
2008 "Winner": Andy Harris for Congress (R-1)
2007 "Winner": Andy Harris for Congress (R-1)
2006 "Winner": Steven Abrams for Comptroller (R)

This almost has more to do with O'Malley's governance and decision making than it does his campaigns ability to campaign. But think about this; what campaign operative in their right mind cannot find themselves a way to convince their candidate that jumping around on stage with their band is a bad idea in the middle of a recession and in the middle of a dig-out from a snowstorm that has a paralyzed their state. True, maybe the problem is a candidate stuck on vapor lock all of the time, but people don't forget simple stuff like this.....

Dishonorable Mention: Rep. Donna Edwards re-election campaign (D-4), Jim Rutledge for U.S. Senate (R)

Worst Run Campaign(National Division): Creigh Deeds for Governor (D-VA)
2008 "Winner": Andy Harris for Congress (R-MD)
2007 "Winner": The Al Gore Draft Campaign (D-TN)
2006 "Winner": Sen. George Allen's re-election campaign (R-VA)
2005 "Winner": Jerry Kilgore for Governor (R-VA)

I honestly can't write any more articulately about the Deeds campaign than Chris Cillizza did, so take a loook at his thoughts on Creigh Deeds.

Dishonorable Mention: Terry McCauliffe for Governor (D-VA), Dede Scozzafava for Congress (R-NY), Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign (D-NJ)

Best International Development: Climategate
2008 Winner: The Surge Continues to Work;
2007 Winner: The Surge in Iraq works
2006 Winner: Saddam Hussein Convicted and Executed
2005 Winner: Free Elections in Iraq

For many years a lot of pundits have considered the idea of global warming and the idea of anthropomorphic climate change to still be an open question. Sadly, many scientists and many political leades had decided that the question was a closed one, that it was a "known fact" that the planet was warming and that it was a "known fact" that humans were the cause of it (much in the same way the heliocentrism was a "known fact"). It's gotten so bad to discuss climate change in some circles that those discussing skepticism of climate change sufering the same ridiculue that one would have received if they dismissed the existance of God in the 1600's.

Of course, when the Climategate emails were released, a lot of regular people became much, much more skeptical about the whole matter. Sure, scientists and politicians are still attemptinmg to remain as true believers on the subject. But there is a reason that a majority of Americans are now skeptical or dismissive of the science on climate change. It's not that people think it may or may not be happening. It's the fact that people think that scientists and politicians are lying to them. That's a big deal.

Honorable Mention: None

Worst International Developments: Copenhagen Climate Conference
2008: "Winner": World economy goes to hell
2007 "Winner": Vladimir Putin consolidates power to outlast term/The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
2006 "Winner": Russian President Vladimir Putin begins murdering critics
2005 "Winner": Vladimir Putin's Reforms in Russia

And this dovetails with our previous mention about Climategate. In the face of tremendous opposition, and the revelation of the falsification of data on climate, leaders from countries around the world flew their jets to Copenhagen in an effort to hammer our a successor to Kyoto. I don't say that this is a bad development because of the agreement Barack Obama negotiated with China; that agreement, in the long run, is rather pedestrian.

No, this is a bad international development because a majority of the nations of the world sent representatives to a conference predicated on an idea that may have been completely fabricated. And that is a sad statement on modern society...

Dishonorable Mention: America become even less respected in the world; North Korean saber rattling; Iran's continued punishment of dissidents; Russia remains uppity

Best News of 2009: Citizens Express desire for Fiscal Discipline
2008 Winner: Ravens make the Playoffs
2007 Winner: Rise of Maryland Blogosphere

The voters of America are fed up. They are fed up with out of control spending. They are fed up with taxes. And in a lot of places, the people are making their vocies heard. They are doing it not just with protests, and blogs, and emails to their representatives. But they are doing it in town halls, and at the ballot box too.

I think we may very well see a paradigm shift in the body politic in 2010. Candidates who support fiscal restraint may find it much, much easier to run this coming year.

Honorable Mention: None really

Worst News of 2009: Debt, Spending Remain out of Control
2008 "Winner": Federal Bailouts
2007 "Winner": O'Malley, General Assembly Democrats Screw Taxpayers
2006 "Winner": Democrats take Congress, Government House

Maryland is again "America in Miniature" when it comes to spending. Find a deficit; raise taxes; raise spending; revenues decrease; wonder what went wrong.

The American people are sick and tired of their taxes being raised, and they are sick and tired of out of touch elected officials continuing to spend money that the state and federal governments do not have. You have to wonder if there is any situation where these elected officials wouldn't spend money if they continue to make the situation more dire for middle and working class families in the middle of these economic times...

Dishonorable Mention: Barack Obama as incompetent as we feared

The only best of the decade list I will give to you....

2009-12-29T04:00:00.002-05:00

As if giving the opportunity for Greg Kline to mock me like he did for me for my all-time favorite songs on RedMaryland Radio back last year, I now present you with my 25 favorite songs of the 2000's (at least as of this moment in time)......with some assistance from the web no less:

25. Divide the Day: "Let it Roll"

24. The Raconteurs: "Steady as She Goes"

23. A Perfect Circle: "Judith"

22. Franz Fedrinand: "Dark of the Matinee"

21. The White Stripes: "Hotel Yorba"

20. Interpol: "The Heinrich Maneuver"

19. Band of Horses: "Detlef Schrempf"

18. Fall Out Boy with John Mayer: "Beat It"

17. Muse: "Uprising"

16. Jack's Mannequin: "The Mixed Tape"

Jack's Mannequin - The Mixed Tape
Uploaded by oth-chad. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

15. Wolfmother: "New Moon Rising"

14. Jimmy Eat World: "The Middle"

13. Josh Ritter: "Me & Jiggs"

12. Franz Fedrinand: "Take me Out"

11. Placebo: "This Picture"

10. Coldplay: "Clocks"

9. Velvet Revolver: "Fall to Pieces"

8. Something Corporate: "I Woke Up in a Car"

7. Pete Yorn: "Life on a Chain"

6. Shooter Jennings: "4th of July"

5. My Chemical Romance: "Helena"

4. Charlie Robison: "El Cerrito Place"

3. Muse: "Knights of Cydonia"

2. The Ruse: "Beautiful is Gone"

1. Johnny Cash: "Hurt"

3B, or not 3B

2009-12-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

We have done a pretty extensive job of documenting the situation in District 3B, from the resignation of turncoat Rick Weldon, to some pontificating about the choice of any potential successors to the seat.

Well, I'd like to weight in with my two cents on the subject by hearkening back to something I wrote in May 2007:

The problem with all of these examples is that Republican leadership constantly avoids leading by the examples that gave reason for the electorate to entrust Republican politicians with positions of leadership for so many years; to cut taxes, reduce the size of government, to emphasize personal responsibility and protect our national security. We cannot continue as a party to expect the American people to entrust us with the confidence and entrust us to lead our ship of state if our party cannot be entrusted to stand up for its first principles.

We cannot identify ourselves as the party of fiscal responsibility if our leadership cannot stand up against earmarks and cannot stand up against wasteful spending....

....It is time that our party reject those issues that divide us as conservatives, and unite around those core issues that bring together all wings of the Republican Party. We must bill willing to embrace fiscal responsibility, particularly when it comes to eliminating pork barrel projects. We must be willing to reduce the size of government in order to ensure to contain government only in the areas where it belongs. We must protect our national security, in order to protect us from foreign nations and from the presence of illegal aliens. And we must ensure that we are committed to upholding all of our Constitutional rights.

Now, when it comes to this vacancy in District 3B, the issue becomes more of state level issues. What issues should be the most important when it comes to considering the ideology of any successor to Weldon's seat? The most important need to be:

Fiscal restraint;
No on new taxes;
A commitment to the reduction in the size of Government.

That's it. Period. And I am going to make the next point in big bold letters:

The absolutely last thing that the Frederick and Washington County Central Committees should be doing is making this a referendum about social conservatism.

What we know is that Maryland, for better or for worse a socially moderate to liberal state, even in somewhat outlying places such as Frederick County. We also know that District 3 is home to a number of transplants from the Washington, DC area who may not be particularly receptive to an overly social conservative message in a General Election.....but they (like the majority of Americans) do find fiscal conservatism and restraint appealing. They want people who are going to protect their pocketbooks and try to ensure government stays out of their way.

Time and again, we have gone out of our way as a party to shoot ourselves in the foot. This is one prime opportunity to make sure that we do not do so again, by sending to Annapolis a Delegate who is best qualified to serve the interests of all Marylanders in these fiscally uncertain times.....regardless of that new Delegate's credentials on social issues.

Judd Legum's still playing in the Mud

2009-12-22T18:18:00.001-05:00

Sure, our friend Judd Legum may be running as a Democrat for Delegate in District 30, but that doesn't mean he's taking any time off from being a political hack for hire:

Gov. Paterson has hired the man who was responsible for "negative research" on then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to dig up dirt on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is preparing to run for governor, The Post has learned.
Paterson's campaign committee signed Maryland-based Judd Legum, research director for then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bitterly fought presidential primary campaign against Obama in 2008, to a five-week contract earlier this month, with the understanding that he would "prepare a research book on Cuomo" and other potential candidates for governor, said a prominent Democratic Party activist.
"Legum is the guy who did a lot of the opposition research work on Obama, and now Paterson's people are outsourcing that kind of work on Cuomo to him," said the source, who demanded anonymity.
Legum, a friend of Paterson campaign spokeswoman and strategist Tracy Sefl, is being paid about $25,000 for the project, it was learned.
Legum confirmed that he had been hired by Paterson's campaign but, when asked to describe his job, insisted, "I really can't talk about that now," and hung up the phone.
Repeated attempts to reach Legum for additional comment were unsuccessful.

Well isn't that special? I wonder what the African-American Democratic primary voters, who just saw Zina Pierre thrown under the bus by the Democratic establishment, are going to think about the white lawyer whose job was to trash Barack Obama in the General Election.

I find it even more humorous that Legum has no comment when you consider the fact that Legum told Capital reporter Eric Hartley that he wants "people would know what I'm up to" in a Twitter interview.

When you combine Legum's shady dealings with Paterson, along with his involvement in ThinkProgress' manufactured deceit, his auctioning of himself to Washington lobbyists, the old questions about his campaign appartus, and the self promoting narcissism that even Democrats can't stand, I would say that there a lot of reasons why nobody of any political stripe can find any reason why Judd Legum should be representing the people of District 30.

Regardless of the ethical clouds that surround Judd Legum, the fact that of the matter is that he owes the people of District 30 and honest answer; is he going to try and be their delegate, or is he content to be a professional political hack. The people of District 30 want to know...

Screwing the Pooch

2009-12-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

The Anne Arundel County Council approved the zoning change that will allow slot machines at Arundel Mills Mall tonight. This is, of course, a completely ridiculous zoning change that will allow a slot machine parlor to be constructed in an area of the county that not only doesn't want slots, but also has enough problems with crime at Arundel Mills itself to deal with without the construction of a new, larger magnet for petty crime.

The bigger context of this story, however, is once again how badly Governor O'Malley and Maryland Democrats screwed up when they approved the Constitutional change that allowed for slot machines in the first place.

The County Council was basically pressured into allowing slot machines at Arundel Mills. There is no way around it. Pressure was coming from the Governor's office, from Legislative leaders, from County Executive John Leopold (once he decided that he was for slots after opposing them for so many years).

But why was so much pressure exerted on the County Council? It wasn't because Arundel Mills was the optimal location for slot machines, particularly in light of the fact that one of the ostensible reasons slots became part of the conversation was to save horse racing. No, the real reason the Council was pressured into the Arundel Mills site is because of the boneheaded decision to allow slot parlors in Anne Arundel County only within two miles on either side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Had the Arundel Mills site failed, then no slots parlor in Anne Arundel County would have been able to open without the adoption of another Constitutional Amendment changing the location requirement (one of the many reasons that I was against the amendment despite being pro-gambling).

Now Marylanders, and particularly those folks in the Hanover/Jessup area, are stuck with a slots parlor nobody wants because Governor O'Malley and General Assembly leaders didn't have the moxie to adopt a slots bill on their own without passing the buck on to the voters of Maryland. What a sad, sad display showing the ramifications of leaders who take no responsibility.

The irony of course; table gaming is coming to Charles Town, probably rendering a lot of this conversation moot and sending a lot of Maryland's gambling dollars to West Virginia....

Not Good Enough

2009-12-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

Well it looks like the General Assembly's Spending Affordability Committee has advised Governor O'Malley to freeze state spending when he introduces his FY2011 budget next month. And while I commend the fact that even legislative Democrats realize our spending growth has gotten untenable, it still is not enough action being taken on the part of the legislature.

Fortunately, Republicans on the Committee tried to show Democrats the way:

Republicans rebuked O'Malley and Democratic leaders, accusing them of fiscal mismanagement. Some contend the state shouldn't accept federal stimulus funding, while others predict Democrats will temporarily reduce spending next year and then propose tax increases after the November 2010 election to fix a structural deficit.

A GOP proposal before the spending committee sought a 7 percent decrease in year-over-year spending. It failed on a party-line vote.

Nobody is surprised that this failed on a party line vote. But it is absolutely correct that state cannot and should not maintain spending at it's current levels. Spending has already increased over the past several years at levels that we cannot afford. And that spending problem is only partially the result of the national economy. As we have noted again, and again, and again, the reasons Maryland has a spending affordability problem are:

Unnecessary increases in social spending, that led to;
Historic and immoral tax increases, that led to;
Lower revenue and a higher costs for Maryland's small businesses, that led to;
Fewer jobs and a higher cost of living for Maryland's middle and working class families, that led to;
Lower tax revenues.

And of course we have talked extensively about wasteful spending and tax policy before.

The State of Maryland has a spending problem and our legislative leadership needs to cut spending. NOW. And until Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly decide to do right by Maryland's middle and working class families, Maryland will continue to have spending affordability and revenue problems.

Marylanders need responsible leadership. We get that chance in 2010...

A Friendly Reminder

2009-12-15T18:44:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm as happy as anybody that so many people are protesting health care in DC. I really am. The fact that 15,000+ people took the time to go downtown today, on a work day, and protest says a lot about their passion and the anger being felt by millions of Americans over the Democrats attempts to bankrupt the country and ruin our health care system.

But this is the easy party. Unless these protesters are willing to put in the grunt work, the long hours, to donate their time, their money, and their sweat to candidates who are willing to fight for their values in Annapolis, in Washington, then it will all be for naught.

My point is that it's real easy to bitch, but it's not so easy to work hard and lead. Our party and our nation needs leaders and workers right now a heck of a lot more than we need protesters...

Meaningless Numbers

2009-12-14T19:13:00.000-05:00

The left has decided to examine Governor Ehrlich's chances of unseating Martin O'Malley next year, and Adam Pagnucco decided to start his analysis with the most meaningless statistic in all of politics: voter registration data.

Overall, the Democrats have an absolute majority (at 56.9%) and outnumber Republicans by better than two-to-one. But the total numbers mask the geographic domination of the Democrats and the regional isolation of the GOP.

The Democrats have more than 50% of registered voters in eight jurisdictions: Baltimore City and Baltimore, Charles, Dorchester, Kent, Montgomery, Prince George’s and Somerset Counties. Those jurisdictions account for 60% of the state’s registered voters. The Republicans have more than 50% of registered voters in two jurisdictions: Carroll and Garrett Counties, which account for just 4% of the state’s registered voters.

Let’s lower the threshold to 40%. The Democrats have more than 40% of registered voters in 18 jurisdictions (all except Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Queen Anne’s and Washington Counties) that account for 88% of the state’s registered voters. The Republicans have more than 40% of registered voters in eight jurisdictions: Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Queen Anne’s, Talbot and Washington Counties, which account for just 17% of the state’s registered voters.

All of which, statistically speaking, was incredibly similar to the numbers that then-Congressman Ehrlich faced in 2002 when he defeated Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Pagnucco goes on to continue with his analysis:

Registration does not always determine voting behavior. Maryland is a state in which Democrats can and do vote for Republicans, the most successful of whom has unquestionably been Bob Ehrlich. But all of the above means that the Democrats have a far broader reach across the state than does the GOP. Western Maryland is the only region in which the Democrats struggle to compete. The Republicans are non-competitive in three of the state’s four biggest jurisdictions (Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties) and lag Democrats in Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, fast-growing Charles County and even some parts of the Eastern Shore. All of this is a hurdle that any statewide GOP candidate would have to overcome.

Which of course, is also completely meaningless. When you look at voting results, and not voting registration, you see a picture that is, statistically speaking, more of a level playing field for Republicans running in Maryland; particularly a more-moderate, high-name ID Republican such as Bob Ehrlich. And, of course you need to look no further than the aforementioned Anne Arundel County to notice that a Democratic-majority county has elected this decade a Republican County Executive, Clerk of the Court, Register of Wills, two Circuit Court Judges who ousted Democratic appointees, three Judges of the Orphans Court, four of seven County Council Members, a majority of the Delegates, half of the State Senators, and gave two solid majorities to Bob Ehrlich and George W. Bush, and even one to John McCain.

What does this all mean? It means that voter registration numbers as a means of determining voter performance are completely useless......which was something Pagnucco could have learned had he read my analysis from six months ago, the last time he tried this argument.

If Democrats are hanging their hat on voter registration numbers to bail them out next year, Bob Ehrlich and the Republican Party may be in better shape that even we think...

Get Real

2009-12-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

Len Lazarick reported yesterday about the work of the General Assembly Compensation Commission, which determines whether or not the members of the General Assembly are underpaid when they make $43,000 a year for part time work. But it seems like some of the findings of the commission are not going to put members of the General Assembly (presumably of both parties) in a good light:

The 51 pages of data legislative staff produced for the commission contained a number of telling statistics. For instance, 86 percent of the 188 lawmakers claim their full $42 daily meal per diem during the 90-day session without submitting receipts, though some senators and delegates attend receptions and committee dinners hosted by others....

...Eighty percent of legislators --156 lawmakers -- are reimbursed for lodging for all 90 days the legislature is in session, most at the maximum rate of $126 a day, even though many live within commuting distance. Some of the hotels throw in free breakfast, Sprague noted.

Emphasis mine. And why not give these folks higher compensation during a recession, the lot of them are doing such a bang-up job...

This is an issue that we have touched on before, with a number of legislators who live right here in Anne Arundel County staying the night in Annapolis and claiming their full $126 per diem rate. As I said nearly two years ago:

There is virtually NO good reason (except for maybe issues concerning the weather) for an Anne Arundel County legislator to seek state reimbursement for hotel rooms in Annapolis. It's completely insulting as a taxpayer to see legislators, regardless of political affiliation, live the high life at the Loews or the Marriott in Annapolis while the rest of us mere mortals are subjected to higher taxes and higher costs of living. Sure, I don't have as much of a problem allowing for reimbursable expenses for legislators from the Eastern Shore, or Western Maryland, or even Montgomery County. But when you work in the county you live in, it's just shows embarrassingly poor judgment.

And it still stand true. Frankly, any legislator who lives within a reasonable commuting distance from Annapolis who decides to stay in Annapolis and claim their full per diem is unfit for office. Period.

In the meantime, somebody also needs to get the memo to Senate President Mike Miller that it's a tacky to justify these handouts to General Assembly members in the middle of a recess

Miller defended the per diems and lodging arrangements.

“I don’t think people abuse” the meal or lodging per diem, Miller said. “These are elected officials. Nobody is going to be chintzy about meals.”

“I get invitations to four or five receptions a night, and I rarely eat or consume anything at these events,” Miller said. “Obviously you can’t drink or you’d be an alcoholic.”

“You’re not there to eat, you’re there to meet and greet, and you can’t talk with your mouth full,” Miller said.

He pointed out that some senators and delegates don’t go to any receptions on principle, and other members will go out to eat after they’ve attended a reception.

Well, let's throw a pity party for General Assembly members. It must be tough getting $43,000 a year to work a part-time job (that admittedly does require a lot of extra attention) while generally holding down another full-time job.

There are thousands of Marylanders right now who are unemployed (a lot of them thanks to the General Assembly's complicity in Martin O'Malley's reckless spending) who would be absolutely delighted to be making $43,000 a year for a full-time job, much less a part-time one. To then defend the legislators use of per diem, with the added insult that implies General Assembly members are too good to eat like the rest of us, is an insult to all of the middle and working class taxpayers who are suffering thanks to the actions of Miller and the rest of the Democrats in the General Assembly.

I hope that the compensation commission recommends no changes to the salary or expense rates for General Assembly members. Regulations should be adopted by the General Assembly regarding who is and is no eligible to receive per diem lodging payments (banning legislators within a 50-mile radius of Annapolis from receiving lodging reimbursements would be a good start). And the commission should continue to hold the line on expenses until legislators shape up, provide receipts, and stop abusing the system. They are not send to Annapolis to have a taxpayer funded vacation; they are citizen legislators who are (theoretically) there to serve the interests of the state, not to be reimbursed for expenses that are clearly unnecessary or nonexistent.